| Topic Name: |
TV NEWS IS DYING |
| Message Name: |
It's a lot like the American auto industry |
| Date Posted: |
05/19/2005 |
| In Reply To: |
..and some of it is the viewer.
Look, I agree that the news media gets obsessed with frivolous crap. We do the runaway bride to death and devote several minutes to the inane intricacies of the Michael Jackson trial while devoting little attention to major issues. But guess what? The viewer want to hear about the runaway bride, Jackson, Laci Peterson, OJ, etc.. etc.. etc.. They tune out when we talk social security, Iraq or terrorism.
When there were only 3 choices for news, it was far easier to force feed the viewers a news diet that included talk of important issues. Now they have plenty of options to tune to if you aren't giving them what they want.
Local TV news can survive and prosper by providing local information that can't be found anywhere else. Ultimately that means that stations will have to increase the number of reporters on the street, not increase the amount of local time wasted on "national" stories like Michael Jackson. Those local reporters have to be good journalists willing to dig for a story. The stations that do this well will survive.
The stations that keep adding feed packages to their local shows (or worse, pull a sinclair) will continue to free fall in the ratings.
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| Message: |
Profits before product. GM & Ford have the same problem. It's caught up with them to the point where the profits are gone. They sat on big ol' SUV's and 1950's technology and are getting their arses waxed by The Japanese, Germans, and now the Koreans.
Traditional broadcasters wake up to cable competition and react by down-sizing. Viewers by cars. When they've got choices and your product suffers from quality problems,they go elsewhere. Market shares shift.
Health care costs not withstanding US automakers are losing market share because people don't buy their cars. Broadcasters lose market share when the programs blow and suck simultaneously and the viewer has something else to watch that sucks and blows less.
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