The network news channels are not the influential powerhouses of public opinion that they once were. You could not even say that about newspapers and magazines anymore, what with all the reports of how small and medium-sized newspapers hundreds of them, have closed down over the past couple of years. In fact, we are hearing now about how even the major network news channels - ABC News and others, are shutting down bureaus and laying off reporters and staff, in the way we have grown used to hearing about GM or anyone else. ABC is dropping one out of every four news reporting staff now.
Not only is it not profitable anymore to run a free-to-air news channel, they actually don't even break even. ABC News will probably not last through the end of this decade if it continues with the business model it uses now. So if free advertising-dependent network news channels are not profitable, how about the cable news channels? NBC for instance, has its own cable channel - MSNBC. Certainly they're profitable, but they've only been able to be that way after they went through a round of stripped- down operations. As for CBS, they've been losing money for quite a while now, and they've cut more than 50 jobs too in key news departments.
Of course as with anything else, blaming it all on the Internet, is a pretty good explanation for it. People have YouTube and all kinds of sources of news on the Internet; and they play on demand to your exact tastes. If you want entertainment news, you have a dozen choices playing nonstop entertainment gossip. If you want to know more about Ted Kennedy's politics, you could probably find five videos right away. Who would want to hang around the television set for when they might broadcast on the areas you're interested in? There's just no doubt about it - news, in any form, just cannot exist in the traditional form, when the Internet is around. The New York Times will be granting online access to readers only through a pay wall soon, and network news channels will probably have to just move their act over to pay cable.
NBC's certainly shown the way; if they did not have MSNBC, they would probably be considering their options right now as well. It would appear that the strategy the network news channels have of cutting down on their operations everyday is a very good way, if you want to just shrink yourself to oblivion. Last year was the best for profitability ever for CNN. And here are the network news channels, considering if they really need a coffee machine in the rec. room.
The problem is, right now, news channels like ABC news are their own bosses; they answer to no one who is constantly checking out the bottom line. Getting married to CNN is certainly going to put an end to that. But it really has to happen one day; when a company begins to struggle, and another business model is more profitable, the struggling companies are usually absorbed iswhat always happens in any industry. That's how GM came to own so many brands around the world.
Word is that Bloomberg and ABC are weighing their options, as are CNN and CBS. For any network broadcasting company, closing down a news channel, or compromising on it in anyway is bitter medicine. These are a great way to gain respect and dignity in the industry. However, they have been used losing viewers all the time. I wouldn't count on having network news channels work like they do today, even five years from now. And when the serious viewers who remain, see their favorite ABC evening newscast getting its input canned and ready-made straight from Reuters or AP because they just closed down ten foreign bureaus, they're only going to decline even further. If you ask me, network news channels aren't going to be around in even five years. the way things are going.