On this question rides billions of dollars, the livelihoods of thousands of people, the future of local TV news, and the continuity of the word “community,” at least as we used to define it. The ultimate demise of the broadcasting paradigm is inevitable, because the forces undercutting its foundation are too many and too strong, and when it comes, it will seem like it happened overnight. The reality, however, is that it’s been building for a long time.
It may be five years. It may be ten. But its future is set. Like newspapers, the industry itself will be redefined and won’t go away entirely, but the days of systems that produce runaway profits for broadcast companies are history. Worse yet, the industry’s “second revenue stream” via retransmission consent is on a collision course with new business logic, and it simply cannot sustain the future.
Broadcasters have seen ratings slip over the past10 years as viewers increasingly turned to cable for TV programming. According to research from Nielsen, broadcasters owned a46.8% household share in2000, compared with cable networks’41.2%. Cable’s household share has since risen to60.6% while the share among broadcasters has dipped to32.1%. Video games are beginning to cut into both, according to Nielsen.
