C6 TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2024 ELKO DAILY FREE PRESS 00 1 Was going down this road inevitable? With the explosion of the giant companies that dominate the entertain- ment industry saw that as the future. To a large extent, concentrated time, energy and resources on these services, launching a competition that still shaken out no one knows yet how many streaming services the market will support and which ones will survive. Was the downfall of cable the inevitable result? the gazillion-dollar ques- Herzog says. conglomerates, they jumped the gun, I think, in shifting their assets away from the cable networks and left them as says Michael Schneider, television editor at Variety. paying the In 2015, some of American homes had a cable or satellite television subscrip- tion, according to the Nielsen company.
By 2023, only of homes subscribed. If you include services like Hulu or YouTube TV, the percentage of homes with access to multiple channels was last year, Nielsen said. If fewer people have cable, then obvi- ously fewer are watching. To illustrate how fast habits are changing, a survey taken in January by the digital marketing agency Adtaxi found that of viewers turned to streaming before cable or broadcast when they sat down to watch TV. Only a year earlier, said streaming was their default choice.
Much of what people stream are pro- grams originally on broadcast and cable. That provided a windfall hard to resist for creators of those shows, one top executive said. The tradeoff was getting people ac- customed to a different kind of viewing experience watching what they wanted, when they wanted it, even binging. All without the distraction of commercials, at least at Remember couch potatoes? Channel surfers? Now the and gen- eration has taken over. more than trading descrip- tive phrases.
Reclining before a big screen with a remote control, searching for some- thing to do, is an activity fading with the times, says John Landgraf, chairman of FX Content Productions and a big-picture thinker of the media industry. It was Land- graf who coined the phrase to describe an overwhelming of televi- sion programming. Streaming is more proactive, he says. Tik-Tok, YouTube and gaming are sup- planting television in occupying people who are simply looking to some time. out Landgraf says.
He says optimistic parent, Disney, will solve this puzzle. no small thing when the industry is built upon advertisers who pay to reach those consumers active or passive. While streaming offers viewers the con- venience of making their own schedules, its algorithms are designed to push people into ever-smaller circles, suggesting pro- gramming similar to what already watched before, Landgraf said. It further lessens the opportunities for communal viewing experiences, or stumbling upon something that broadens your outlook. he says, lost The road to streaming and the future FX is one of the few compa- nies keeping its brand strong while making a transition to which just won an Emmy for best comedy, is an FX show but available exclusively on the Hulu streaming Horror is on the actual FX television net- work.
Several shows toggle between both. HBO is also making the transition well, while Bravo programming is a strong draw for Peaco*ck. Nickelodeon and MTV are among the brands having a harder time; Global recently put their parent company, Paramount, on a negative credit watch, citing deterioration of the lin- ear television There are still networks keeping the light on. Fox News Channel is top-rated network; news-oriented outlets thrived during the Trump administration but have faded recently. home remodeling holds up.
The Hallmark Channel, with wholesome stories aimed at older women, averaged 929,000 viewers in prime-time last year, up from a decade ago. Despite the exodus of viewers, ghost networks survive because they still make money for their owners. Cable and satellite systems pay fees to carry them passed on to consumers, of course and advertisers buy commercials. When that changes, all bets are off, and odds are the ghosts will move on. DAVID BAUDER Associated Press he list of memorable characters and personalities who entered popular culture through cable television is long: Honey Boo Boo.
Tony Soprano. Lizzie McGuire. Don Draper. Jon Stewart. Beavis and Butt- Head.
Chip and Joanna Gaines. Sponge- Bob SquarePants. Pick your own favorites. Chances are there be many more to join them. Few cable and satellite networks are a force anymore, the byproduct of sudden changes in how people entertain them- selves.
Several have lost more than half their audiences in a decade. es- sentially become ghost networks, their schedules with reruns and barely trying to push toward anything new. Says Doug Herzog, once an executive at Viacom who oversaw MTV, Comedy Cen- tral and other channels: networks, which really meant so much to the viewing public and generations that grew up with them, have kind of been left for As they fade, so are the communities they helped to create. What has been lost? Pockets of success remain, notably with lifestyle and news programming. And not like nothing to watch.
more options on than a diner menu. Yet something undeniably has been lost. triumphant return to Com- edy Daily this win- ter only begs the question: Did it really have to be this way? Cable TV primarily took in the 1980s, break- ing the iron grip of ABC, CBS and NBC. Essentially the fragmentation of media, cable brought peo- ple with common interests together, says Eric Deggans, NPR televi- sion critic. who were previously margin- alized by the focus on mass culture sud- denly got a voice and a connection with other people like Deggans says.
young music fans worldwide bonded over MTV, Black people and folks who love Black culture bonded over BET, mid- dle-aged women bonded over Lifetime and fans of home remodeling convened around HGTV and old-school Nickelodeon and Disney became de facto babysitters. CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC changed the politi- cal discourse. ESPN occupied sports fans. HBO and Showtime, and later networks like FX and AMC, offered edgier fare that broadcasters shied away from. Networks were endlessly malleable, too.
Once MTV recognized there much money in music videos people would change channels when a song they like came on the network became a re- lentless arbiter of cool. Generations had their own touchstones in programs like and Request Now MTV is a ghost. Its average prime- time audience of 256,000 people in 2023 was down from 807,000 in 2014, the Niel- sen company said. One recent evening MTV aired reruns of from 5 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.
The general interest USA nightly audience tumbled in the same time span, and that was before Jan- announcement that viewer-mag- net was switching to Without favorites like Walking or Call prime- time viewership sunk The Disney Channel, birthplace to young stars like Miley Cyrus, Hilary Duff and Selena Go- mez, lost an astonishing of its audi- ence, from 1.96 million in 2014 to 132,000 last year. TBS, TNT, History, Lifetime, FX, BET, Entertainment, SyFy, Comedy Central, VH1 and Discovery have all lost at least half of their 2014 au- dience. For many, most of the schedules are big blocks of reruns: and on Com- edy Central, Big Bang The- and on TBS. Tyler Perry movies domi- nate. Cheap and cheesy tion time: Day at First Seized at the not appointment TV.
accidental. Ghosts. SPOTLIGHT CABLE TELEVISION zombie networks linger with little reason to watch them anymore JOHN BAZEMORE, ASSOCIATED PRESS Beauty pageant regular and reality show star Alana Boo Thompson, then 7, speaks Sept. 10, 2012, at her home in McIntyre, Ga. stint on Comes Honey Boo was must-see TV.
CHRIS PIZZELLO, ASSOCIATED PRESS HGTV stars Joanna Gaines, left, and Chip Gaines pause in the press room Sept. 22, 2022, at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. Miley Cyrus, star of The Disney makes an appearance June 19, 2007, at the Licensing International Expo in New York. The Disney Channel, birthplace to young stars like Cyrus, Hilary Duff, Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez, lost of its audience, from 1.96 million in 2014 to 132,000 last year. MARY ALTAFFER, ASSOCIATED PRESS Ghosts in the machine From left, Tony Sirico, Steve Van Zandt, James Michael Imperioli and Vincent Pastore made the hit series peak TV.
As cable fades, so too might the memorable characters who became popular culture icons. HBO Stewart.
