It’s all about the
Money. If the Media was freed from government constraints, they could produce
what they wanted and segment their audiences and make more money.
Sea Change in TV
Programming – In the 1980s, the great entertainment shows were being cancelled.
TV programming and movie studio executives decided that they could increase
their revenue if they could reach the stupid people who would spend money they
didn’t have.
They had studied the
stupid people and knew that this was a large group and all TV programming and
film making was aimed at them. Their excuse was that TV and movies should
expose the problems in society rather than offering entertainment that ignores
our societal ills. Up to this point, censors had control over content, The
rationale was that the media should not promote bad behavior. But that was
about to change.
Reality TV began in
the 1980s with the Jerry Springer Show. MTV was launched to capture the
Generation X group. Madonna was the rage.
Variety shows were gone. TV
movies included teen sex and horror movies like Chain Saw Massacre, Friday the
13th and Halloween,
Movies that had been
blockbusters since the 1940s were replaced by movies that were cheaper to
produce. By the 1980s, the content was wide open. We saw the movie “rating
system” arrive and consumers were free to choose movies rated G, PG or R.
TV news and newspapers
covered crimes and disasters and we heard “if it bleeds, it leads” as their
motto. It became the Soap Opera News. It also modeled the news after Reality TV
and became the Tabloid, Nosey Window Peeping Drama News to cover scandals and
court cases.
Cable TV had arrived
in the 1980s and full market segmentation was possible. CNN became the first
Cable TV News Network and covered the Iraq War in 1990. That prompted the
creation of the competitors we see today like Fox News for Conservatives and
MSNBC for Liberals. Older viewers are Conservatives and have more money, so the
ads on Fox are heavy on Pharma and buying Gold. There are currently enough
Pharma ads on Fox to form a
Pharma Channel, but
they would lose too much ad revenue to do that.
The Internet became
available in the 1990s and ad space became available with snooping technology
developed by Google and Facebook. This took ad dollars from newspapers and
magazines and buying on line took business from retail stores.
Netflix offered
consumers the ability to view movies on TV that were not interrupted by ads.
Media providers have
added content production to their distribution businesses. Cable Provider
Comcast now owns
NBC Universal $3.3
billion that owns, CNBC, MSNBC, USA and Syfy. Disney produces movies and owns
the Disney Channel. AT&T wants to
buy Time Warner.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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