News of Comcast spinning off their cable news networks is sparking questions on the future of the cable news industry.
There was certainly a time when cable news was the centre of attention. If you wanted to be informed of the daily events, cable news was once the go to source for up to date information on world events. After all, who among us old fuddy duddy’s remembers the people who would stare at CNN for days on end during the war on Iraq and George W Bush’s infamous “Shock and Awe” operations?
Even at that time, few were ever really seriously thinking that cable news was going to enter into its death throes in just a few short years. If anything, in the following couple of years, cable news was widely seen as one of two things that were the real bread winner for cable networks. Reality TV was in the process of sucking the life out of cable networks and the internet was going from an interesting side show to becoming the main focus of everyone’s daily lives. What would be left actually bringing in the dollars was both cable news and sports.
Part of the transition to what we see today is venture capital pillaging the financial resources of news rooms all over and saddling those same organizations with insurmountable debt. News rooms were rapidly getting reduced to mere skeleton crews and told to produce the same quality everyone expects – an excessively tall order to say the least.
Indeed, when the dust began to settle in Iraq, all the weapons of mass destruction that media companies told everyone existed in Iraq turned out to be a fiction. Add in the 2008 financial crisis that really put into question the strength of the financial fundamentals propping up the US economy and the seeds of doubt in the institutions started really making an appearance. This as people began getting their hands on information for themselves and small independent outlets began showing just how lazy some of the journalism going around on mainstream news truly was.
Of course, most people dismissed the cracks forming at the foundation of the institutions people rely on every day – including cable news networks. They are just superficial anyway, what could possibly topple the domination of cable news networks anyway? As it turns out, ignoring the problems and carrying on with business as usual was a potentially fatal mistake.
As the numbers within the mainstream media news rooms dwindled and the quality continued to decline, those cracks were becoming bigger and bigger. The quality of content on social media kept getting better and better. This as the quality of content on traditional outlets continued to plummet and prices kept increasing. It brought on the idea of cord cutting. Why pay for TV altogether when there just wasn’t enough reason to keep paying the higher and higher prices? The implications for cable news is pretty obvious now, but it was a problem routinely dismissed as little more than a silly internet fad.
While the cord cutting trend was largely ignored with the honest belief that this was just a bump in the road, it wasn’t until the last couple of years that cable executives found themselves unable to ignore it. Indeed, the numbers grew so much that it became impossible to ignore. Of course, even finally acknowledging this trend in 2023, the problem was already a runaway freight train where it would be all but impossible to stop. By the end of that year, cord cutting was the majority norm. This year, the numbers just would not get any better. The charts pretty much told the story.
It wasn’t as though audiences weren’t telegraphing their reasons why they are ditching cable TV altogether. Repeated research showed time and time and time again that people are rapidly losing trust in the mainstream media.
For instance, from the political lens, left leaning people see the massive amounts of sane washing to make convicted felon, Donald Trump, look as presidential as possible. This as they attacked Joe Biden relentlessly until he stepped down and continued nitpicking every little flaw from vice president Kamala Harris. As a result, they lost trust in the media institutions they once trusted to enrich their intellectual prowess.
Conversely, the far right, whipped into a frenzy by the 24/7 rage farmers and conspiracy nutcases were convinced cable news is specifically out to get them. For them, the only response is to tear down the institutions altogether. After all, one of the reasons Trump got elected was the promise to revoke the broadcast licenses, defund those organizations, and jail all who dare to disagree with their dear leader.
Who exactly does this leave? Moderate people? Most are so heavily priced out of cable news that many have already ditched cable news altogether. A nice sizable portion don’t even want anything to do with politics altogether. That… doesn’t really leave a lot of people to keep maintaining the cable news bottom lines. After all, why advertise on a medium when there isn’t much of an audience to begin with?
As such, it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that cable news viewership in decline has become a regular headline these days.
So, how bad have things gotten for cable news, anyway? Well, it was just the other month that rumours started to circulate that Comcast might be spinning off it’s cable TV networks. It wasn’t until this month that the rumours were confirmed true. From the Associated Press:
Comcast is spinning off into a new company many of the cable television networks that were once at the entertainment giant’s heart as consumers increasingly swap out their cable TV subscriptions for streaming platforms.
Those one-time stars for Comcast’s NBCUniversal cable television networks include USA, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel, as well as CNBC and MSNBC. Movie ticketing platform Fandango and the Rotten Tomatoes movie rating site will also become part of the new company.
Streaming service Peacock will remain with Comcast, as will Bravo, which provides significant content for the Peacock streaming service, and other assets like the NBCUniversal’s studios and theme parks.
Comcast telegraphed the shift last month, before confirming Wednesday that it will spin off assets that generated about $7 billion in revenue over the past 12 months ending Sept. 30. That’s about 5.5% of Comcast’s total revenue during that period, according to the company.
Yes, there are already problems going on with many of the streaming services today, but an argument could be made that it isn’t as bad as cable TV. After all, here, we are seeing Comcast ditching cable TV, including cable news, like financial dead weights in their portfolio that are finally getting cut. This as the company rely more on other things like online streaming.
While it has long been denied by some, I think it offers one of the bigger signals yet that cable TV, including cable news networks, is a sunset industry. It isn’t about finding new ways to be growth leaders. Instead, the industry seems more likely to be hanging on to the dwindling revenue streams as people find themselves tuning out. Indeed, many cable TV providers have long simply relied on raising the prices of TV packages to make up the difference in those who ditch cable TV altogether.
I mean, seriously, how do you look at Comcast ditching Cable TV and conclude that cable TV is still experiencing the best of times right now? I know some people are already trying to spin this as great news by arguing that this means that these cable TV companies can now be more independent and agile, but this assessment really smacks of desperate spin rather than someone seeing opportunity in the situation.
To be clear, I don’t see cable TV disappearing completely. I’m sure there are going to be some niche instances where some of the players stick around for awhile longer. However, it’s easy to look at everything and conclude that the best days for cable TV, and cable news networks for that matter, are behind us.
