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TOGETHER WE WERE ONCE ALL TIED TO AN ANCHOR NAMED WALTER UNTIL HE RELEASED US WITH THE WORDS: ‘AND THAT’S THE WAY IT IS’

Guest post by: Thomas J. Madden

Article Overview: Sooner or later entrepreneurs are going to have to deal with news media, so it might be worthwhile to see how and why they're evolving thru the eyes of a former network programmer.

TOGETHER WE WERE ONCE ALL TIED TO AN ANCHOR NAMED WALTER UNTIL HE RELEASED US WITH THE WORDS: ‘AND THAT’S THE WAY IT IS’

Network news is reminiscent of the '50s classic sci-fi film "The Incredible Shrinking Man." Today it's The Incredible Shrinking audience for Network News. Sadly, network news departments are on the same dinosaur path as newspapers heading into a brave new fragmented, web-driven world where fact, opinion, entertainment and bias blur and each news operation shares a smaller and smaller piece of the economic pie as they morph into breezier, lighter-weight online formats. Walter Cronkite, we miss you.

Actually, it's not as bad as it sounds, as today serious news consumers can find information from an ever widening array of sources and viewpoints and it's all readily available 24/7 and as close by as our iPods and maybe eventually from chips in our brains, one for sports, politics, entertainment, liberal, conservative, etc. Consumers will become the new editors and programmers. If you think the Tea Party created divisions, consider what a fragmented broadcast spectrum will do as Americans will have a more difficult time talking to one another without shouting and an occasional head stomping.

Also among the dearly departed are many of the community-building local newspapers that brought us together, which also are become a thing of the past. I see more and more fragmentation of the spectrum, allowing entire networks devoted to certain content categories. At the rate we're going, there probably will be a network offering 24/7 news and information about men's ties, with some dapper gentleman signing off: And that's the way it ties.

Local TV is fast replacing the local newspaper. In news, the local angle has always ruled. Five hundred deaths far away are not equal to one nearby. It's human nature. We are localites. That's not to say local news won't expand and pamper its audience interactively on the Internet. But it's here to stay for a long while, only perhaps relying more and more on outside sources for content, on PR firms like TransMedia Group.

Just likeairlines, news media willcontinue to mergeto survive. CNN with CBS, etc., that will produce efficiencies and save the 24-news cycle from extinction. Television network news in a traditional sense is an endangered species. The only way to survive is to marry and remain faithful to your principles.

Fox News will continue to dominate cable news as it has successfully blended information and entertainment and it consistently delivers what it knows its audience wants. Beyond fair and balanced, Foxis fun and provocative;interesting, fast-faced and lively. But I can see why a whole other audience avoids it. O'Reilly is basically an entertaining reporter and what's wrong with injecting some fun and satire and almost comic exasperation into a so-called news program?

What's does the future hold for such specialty news programs as 60 Minutes or 48 Hours? These are programs that function like specials that interrupt a night of sitcoms. They are dramatic forms of news that shock, amaze, anger and disgust. They are islands of drama in a sea of sameness, so they will endure. If not, they are headed for that uplifting but remote and less populated island resort--Public Television.

What do you think of the fact that some Americans say they get their TV "news" from watching Jon Stewart? As someone who started his career as a newspaper reporter who took news seriously and endeavored to report it as fairly and accurately as possible, it bothers me that people are getting their basic news from comics. I have nothing against comedy. And I like to laugh as much as the next guy, but really, do we want comedians as a news source?

A lot of news shows and channels now are enlisting viewer participation through submission of video feeds. Your thoughts on citizen journalism for TV? I admire it, although it makes me nervous a little, as it's almost an accuracy freefall. Who are the sources of the video? How fair and balanced are they? It's more spice than substance much of the time. I like it. I'm just skeptical, which is not a bad way to be these days about information.

Lots more Americans now are watching TV online via Hulu. What impact, if any, does that have on TV news and TV programming generally? There's only so many hours in the day, so any new TV service, online or cable, has the effect of diminishing available audience or reducing the size of the viewing pie, so all news channels will then be competing for a smaller slice, which could put additional pressure on news operations for ratings.

And that's the way it is.

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Article Tags: audience, broadcast, network, news, public relations, ratings, television, Walter Cronkite



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