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Are broadcast networks becoming obsolete 10-20 yrs from now?

Joseph_Gallant said:
Quite possibly, with the repeaters/satellite stations each maintaining small news bureaus that would shoot some news footage and feed it back to the parent station to air on local newscasts seen on both the parent stations and all of their repeater/satellite stations.

How it could work:

Let's assume that CBS owned WGME-13 in Portland, Maine and made it a repeater/satellite of WBZ-4 Boston. WGME would simulcast WBZ's local newscasts, but would also have a small news bureau that would cover one or two stories from Southern Maine each day, feed them to WBZ, and in turn, the story (stories) would appear on newscasts produced by WBZ and seen on both WBZ and all it's repeater/satellite stations.
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Having spent 40+ years in broadcast newsrooms, that's a fine idea, Joseph. Technically, it would be quite easy. If master control for WGME was moved to WBZ (this is increasingly common---"hubbing" master control facilities for multiple markets), a story could be produced for WGME every day that would be automatically inserted into a specific block of WBZ's newscast as it went to Portland. WBZ's viewers would see local Boston stories while WGME's audience would, for those few minutes, see a story or stories about Southern Maine.

Why not just air the Portland stories on WBZ? Thirty-five years ago, I had News Directors telling me that stories of interest in the third-largest suburb (200,000 people) of the large market we were in (1.6 million people) was not gonna play because the people in the rest of the metro didn't care. If something caught fire, if a kid were run over by a school bus, if there was a psycho on the loose in that suburb---THAT we'd air. But non-sensational stories of value to people who lived there? Pass.

Also, WBZ would not go to the expense of having employees or a bureau in Southern Maine. So what ends up happening is WBZ would just pipe its Boston newscast into WGME, folks in Portland would get used to saying "We get Boston TV news up here" and when something really bad happened in Portland, 'BZ would send a crew up to cover it. Or hire a local stringer on per diem if they could get away with it.

It's a shame, but it's how that would most likely go.
 
DavidEduardo said:
But PBS is a virtual midget compared to the state-controlled broadcast authorities such as the ones I mentioned in my prior post. In fact, many of the best PBS drama series are sourced from those state-run broadcast organizations.

Comparing the PBS with the BBC, for example, is like comparing a Yugo with a BMW.
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For all the theatrics from Ted Cruz and others about defunding PBS, only 15 percent of the money for PBS comes from government funding (for NPR radio, it's 2%).

The rest comes from viewers (and listeners) like you, as they say.
 
boombox4 said:
Also, a lot of local news is being replaced by social media postings, and sites like "Nextdoor", where a lot of local news items are posted. My suburb of over 100K used to have its own newspaper. That folded into a non-working website in the 2010's, and has since been replaced by Nextdoor neighborhood and similar social media.
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What hastened the demise of traditional local print/online journalism more than anything is the death of classified advertising. That was a gold mine for newspapers that dried up in a heartbeat when Craigslist and other forms of free online classifieds came along in 1995. A 2015 study estimated local newspapers lost $5 billion in revenue from 2000 to 2007 alone.

And that kicked off an endless spiral---the loss of the revenue forced cuts, readers found less to like, subscriptions declined, taking commercial advertising rates with them, forcing more cuts, readers finding less to like and an increasing number of places to find information if not quite news, subscriptions declining some more, taking commercial advertising rates with them...

It's grim.
 
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landtuna said:
Both The West Wing and Beverly Hillbillies were very good shows in their time. Two very different kind of shows though and drastically different demo targets.

People tend to get sick of political dramas fairly rapidly but comedies never get old.
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Not the point, but I chose THE WEST WING very specifically because its ratings were exceptionally stable throughout its run, falling off only in its seventh season.

THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES dropped precipitously after the first two seasons, and fell out of the top ten in season six.

Arguably, the political drama sustained better than the comedy in this case, which is the only one that matters for this discussion.

Again, it wasn't the point, but you'd think we offered cash prizes on this board for the greatest margin by which a point can be missed.

(REMINDER: The point was that the decline in network ratings cannot be directly tied to "It's the crap they air", and "If they'd only put quality shows on the air", the numbers still would be lower. )
 
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boombox4 said:
You are forgetting the huge percentage of households where making the money last till the 30's of the month is a skill and a challenge. And we are seeing more and more people in that class, particularly with estimates that show over 20,000,000 undocumented immigrants, most with less than a 6th grade education... and over 2 million a year arriving now.

-------

That 20-million number (and I don't doubt someone is reporting it as news, and I doubt I'd be surprised by the source) is double the real number:

www.pewresearch.org

What the data says about immigrants in the U.S.

As of June 2025, the country’s foreign-born population had shrunk by more than a million people, marking its first decline since the 1960s.
www.pewresearch.org www.pewresearch.org

I'd need to see some verifiable facts on the two-million undocumented immigrants per year as well, given that the total number of immigrants (documented and undocumented) tends to be half that yearly.

And before someone says "politics", we're talking about factual and quality news reporting in this thread, so let's back up any claims.
 
Mikey Radio said:
Some smaller stations are already pooling their resources and doing this to some extent. Where my parents live, for instance, their (small market) station airs 3 or 4 local 30 minute newscasts per day, but their 5 or 5:30 newscast is a regional or statewide one where I believe 3 different stations contribute stories, and a central anchor presents them so you see a mix of stories from around that state or region. To be frank, if their local stations had to do more than those few newscasts each day, it would be incredibly repetitive and monotonous. As it is they use a lot of state and national stories to fill time, they run on a shoestring so even the "anchors" from that station go out into the field, shoot video, do interviews and post on social media, and so little that's truly "newsworthy" happens in that area that many of the newscasts might as well be repeats of the earlier ones. At times I've seen them report out the same stories with the same video roll for more than a few days in a row. In their case it most likely does make more sense for a few stations to pool resources, and just keep a few staff local to shoot video and cover breaking stories and larger events.
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That's actually a creative solution. What market is that?
 
CTListener said:
And that idiom is "well heeled."

Aren't you glad spelling skills are optional in radio?
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Just a quick note that autocorrect of late has become militant. In a post yesterday, it would not allow me to write "Art Laboe", insisting that the correct word was "labor". As though "a specialty show by legendary disc jockey Art Labor" would make any sense.
 
boombox4 said:
Also, a lot of local news is being replaced by social media postings, and sites like "Nextdoor", where a lot of local news items are posted. My suburb of over 100K used to have its own newspaper. That folded into a non-working website in the 2010's, and has since been replaced by Nextdoor neighborhood and similar social media.

Total agreement on your last statement. A lot of people are hurting. Many online joked about high gas prices, not ever taking into consideration that filling your tank with $5/gallon gas could eliminate one day's pay if you were on the lower rungs of society. When you're dealing with that sort of financial burden, inflation is no longer something to make jokes about.
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Nextdoor has entertainment value.....I'm not sure about news value.
 
michael hagerty said:
Just a quick note that autocorrect of late has become militant. In a post yesterday, it would not allow me to write "Art Laboe", insisting that the correct word was "labor". As though "a specialty show by legendary disc jockey Art Labor" would make any sense.
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For many years, Microsoft Word would correct "Beasley" with "Beastly"
 
gr8oldies said:
Nextdoor has entertainment value.....I'm not sure about news value.
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It's mostly about thieves getting you catalytic converter and a good place to get your A/C fixed.
 
DavidEduardo said:
For many years, Microsoft Word would correct "Beasley" with "Beastly"
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I catch most (but not all of them). The worst was a few years back when I was ND at KFBK.

One of our producers, a young woman, called in sick at the last minute. I was heading for the door on my way to work, so instead of going back to my laptop, I sent an all-newsroom e-mail from my iPhone while walking to the car with a subject line "Staffing Update".

I wrote:

"Kristin sick. I'll produce."

When I walked into the newsroom 40 minutes later, everyone burst out laughing. Then my Assistant ND showed me the e-mail the newsroom (including Kristin) got:

"Kristin suck. I'll produce."
 
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michael hagerty said:
Just a quick note that autocorrect of late has become militant. In a post yesterday, it would not allow me to write "Art Laboe", insisting that the correct word was "labor". As though "a specialty show by legendary disc jockey Art Labor" would make any sense.
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To someone with no idea who Art Laboe is, Art Labor would make just as much sense. TBH, I don't know who he is either, and I'd like to think I'd try to verify the name if it came up in a story, if only because "Labor" is an uncommon surname, Come to think of it, if the story contained "Laboe," I would definitely check for spelling and to see if the "b" is capitalized. I would suspect one particular reporter of butchering the French surname "Lebeau/LeBeau." That would be the reporter who once turned in a heartwarming story about a lost and found "chuwawa."

Oh, and "legendary" would be gone, replaced by whatever city or cities Laboe was well known in.
 
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CTListener said:
To someone with no idea who Art Laboe is, Art Labor would make just as much sense. TBH, I don't know who he is either, and I'd like to think I'd try to verify the name if it came up in a story, if only because "Labor" is an uncommon surname, Come to think of it, if the story contained "Laboe," I would definitely check for spelling and to see if the "b" is capitalized. I would suspect one particular reporter of butchering the French surname "Lebeau/LeBeau." That would be the reporter who once turned in a heartwarming story about a lost and found "chuwawa."

Oh, and "legendary" would be gone, replaced by whatever city or cities Laboe was well known in.
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Yes, but this stuff is supposed to be predictive. Do you have any idea how many times, on that computer, I’ve typed the name “Art Laboe”—-without it needing to meddle?

That’s why I say it’s “become militant”.

Art, by the way is legendary in California and I was posting to a California board.
 
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michael hagerty said:
THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES dropped precipitously after the first two seasons, and fell out of the top ten in season six.
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A six year run for a comedy show is pretty common isn't it? Laugh-In, one of the most popular comic shows lasted only six IIRC and many celebrity based comedies lasted much less.
michael hagerty said:
Again, it wasn't the point, but you'd think we offered cash prizes on this board for the greatest margin by which a point can be missed.
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Thank you. I was just offering another opinion. I deeply apologize for overstepping your boundaries.
michael hagerty said:
REMINDER: The point was that the decline in network ratings cannot be directly tied to "It's the crap they air", and "If they'd only put quality shows on the air", the numbers still would be lower. )
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I don't remember anyone saying it was the only or predominant reason networks are dying but it surely is an important one. And, IMHO, Faux is the far and away leader in this category.
 
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