Ryan Hall is the Future of Television

 

Recently, a pair of stories set an army of tongues wagging. Both dealt with the somewhat dismal prospects for cable news. First, there was the announcement that MSNBC, the political mirror image of Fox News, was being spun off by its parent company, Comcast.  In addition to this, there was more grim news: CNN, which has faced stormy internal waters, had lost 34% of its audience since 2016, while competitors Fox News and MSNBC gained 5% and 35% respectively. (Despite the rosy growth numbers for MSNBC, the network nonetheless has roughly half the viewership of Fox News in 2023 - 1.5 million versus 860,00 respectively.) Be that as it may, growing viewership or not, all three national news networks are on the same sinking ship as Americans continue to "cut the cable." Since 2016, there has been a 28% decline in homes carrying the networks in cable packages. This death spiral cannot be suffered for long for an industry dependent on the ad revenue generated by cable subscriptions. In light of those facts, Comcast's sale of MSNBC makes more sense.

When those two stories broke near the end of last year, I was disappointed that so many were quick to ascribe political motives to the stories, especially Fox News's domination of cable news. Conveniently ignoring not only the large growth of MSNBC's audience since 2016 but also the overall decline of cable news in general, the discussion often devolved into an oft-repeated mantra about Americans seeking right-wing echo chambers for their news.  While there is certainly more than a little of that going on, the overall decline of national cable news paints a more complex issue, something insightful pundits, such as Jennifer Rubin, (formerly of WaPo - but who isn't these days?) were quick to point out. 

The problem with cable news is that as with home encyclopedia sets, it is an idea that no longer makes sense in a wifi world.  Before we could carry a world's worth of constantly updated news in our pockets with our smartphones, having entire networks devoted to (mostly) live news coverage pumped into our TVs made sense.  But now, not so much. In a time where fewer and fewer people even use their televisions for viewing their favorite shows - mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets have taken that pride of place from the television - having networks devoted to 24/7 cable news coverage makes sense for few outside of a graying population uncomfortable with technology. (Fun fact: 69% of Fox News viewers are over 50 years old, with the median being 68 years old.)

Ryan Hall is a plucky weathercaster who hosts his own YouTube Channel, Ryan Hall, Y'all. (Stick with me here.) These days, I get my weather from him. This is not a slight against my local affiliate weathermen - ABC NY has some excellent weatherpeople - but against the networks that host them. Have you noticed that television weather forecasters never give you the entirety of the forecast in one segment? Instead, you are told to stick around for later in the broadcast to get the rest of the forecast, specifically, the so-called long-range forecast that is the most important (if you want to know what the weather is right now...just go outside). Ryan Hall doesn't do that. Instead, he gives the viewer not just today's weather, and not just tomorrow's weather, but the weather for sometimes weeks into the future (with the requisite caveats about the diminution of accuracy over time).  In an era where weather data is available en toto from many different sources, this makes sense. Anyone with access to the internet doesn't need to wait for the next weather segment, they can just go online and get the complete forecast - or, if they choose, the raw data - with the press of a button or swipe of a finger.  

This habit of the networks baiting the viewer to wait for the complete forecast is just another indication of the old media's calcified modus operandi. Even though audiences are no longer held captive by a lack of alternatives, the legacy media continues to operate as if they are. While this is a frustrating decision, it is not unreasonable. Recall that the average cable news viewer is well over fifty years old.  (See? I told you I was going somewhere with this digression!) The higher the age, the less likely that person is even aware of his interwebs alternatives.  Hence, why television networks continue to operate in the way they do. They might be the captain of a geriatric Titanic, but they are still the captain.

Of course, all the captain hats in the world are not going the stop the ship from sinking. For example, have you also noticed the declining ad quality on cable TV? It is a dumping ground of the type of ads Google Adsense usually serves to low-traffic sites like my blog here: a steady stream of direct marketing rubbish, from overpriced body lotion posing as deodorant to gambling apps that prey on the most vulnerable. It is embarrassing. But when your industry is losing millions of viewers every year, I guess you take what you can get. On the other hand, the 21st-century reality of television - aka streaming services - has ads that once were on cable television, ads for Bosch, Maytag, Genesis et cetera. In other words, the companies with the deep advertising pockets are no longer buying ads on some of the largest cable networks, but are instead putting that revenue on streaming services where they can expect a better return on their investment. That is the proverbial canary in the coal mine, and it already coughing with black lung disease.

One of my concerns for 21st Century America is the many people and institutions pretending they live in 20th Century America. From legacy media to red-hat political movements, I see all too many people desperately pretending that if they stamp their feet sufficiently hard, 2025 will become 1985.  Television, specifically cable news, is one of those in deep denial. (As are Baby Boomer Hollywood executive producers who are desperately trying to convince themselves that what today's youth want are movies about Bob Dylan.  I can't wait for them to get around to a Peter, Paul and Mary flick next!😁 But that is a topic for another time!)  

This past weekend, I watched all the major cable news networks cover former President Jimmy Carter's funeral, live and for the entirety of the ceremony. This is not a slight against paying due respect to a former president, but merely a commonsensical question about just whom the target audience for this coverage was?  Worse, once the ceremony was concluded, the coverage switched to a panel discussion of the funeral, followed by live coverage of the motorcade to the site of internment. Lazy journalism or a news medium that has passed from relevance to inanity? You decide. While not as uproariously silly as when MSNBC decided that a historian recalling their meeting with Carter deserved the "new development" banner (or some such silly label - did she forget?), it was nearly as bad a waste of time for a medium that has no time left to waste, theirs or their viewers.