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Network News at a Crossroads (Dinosaur Media DeathWatchâ„¢)
The New York Times ^ | February 28, 2010 | Brian Stelter and Bill Carter

Posted on 03/01/2010 2:20:16 AM PST by abb

ABC News is making no secret about what is behind the sweeping staff cuts it now faces: raw survival instinct.

“I just looked out at the next five years and was concerned that we could not sustain doing what we were doing,” said David Westin, the president of ABC News, as he explained the decision last week to jettison up to 400 staff members, a quarter of the news staff, in the coming months.

The same compelling motive already instigated strategic retrenchment at ABC’s broadcast competitors. NBC, the one network with a cable news channel, MSNBC — and, not coincidentally, the only network in a sound position of profitability — has drastically pared down its operations over the last few years. So has CBS, which is losing money already and has cut about 70 jobs this year.

But with news available more places than ever, on cable channels and Internet sites, and with revenue challenged by heavy dependence on shrinking advertising dollars, the future for the news divisions at ABC and CBS remains deeply insecure.

“Long term, it’s going to get harder for these guys to exist as they are currently constructed, with the exception of NBC because it can offload the costs on MSNBC,” Michael Nathanson, an industry analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said.

The economic problems facing ABC News and CBS News in many ways mirror those faced by newspapers, which have been similarly afflicted by a drop in advertising revenue. The reaction — severe cuts in personnel and other costs — also looks to be the same.

But can you shrink your way to prosperity? Andrew Heyward said of the ABC cuts: “The real issue after this is what will drive growth? How do you generate more profit? And this doesn’t address that.”

snip

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: advertising; dbm; networks; television
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"By the end of this decade or shortly thereafter, television networks as we know them today will cease to exist. They will be just another url on the world wide web competing against millions of others."

"Network evening newscasts will go dark after the '08 elections and their news divisions disbanded."

Walter Abbott, (b. 1950), Media observer, blogger and commentator

1 posted on 03/01/2010 2:20:16 AM PST by abb
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To: 04-Bravo; aimhigh; andyandval; Arizona Carolyn; backhoe; Bahbah; bert; bilhosty; Caipirabob; ...

ping


2 posted on 03/01/2010 2:20:44 AM PST by abb ("What ISN'T in the news is often more important than what IS." Ed Biersmith, 1942 -)
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To: abb

Lies just don’t work well.


3 posted on 03/01/2010 2:24:20 AM PST by bmwcyle (Free the Navy Seals)
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To: abb

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703940704575090120113003314.html
Magazines Team Up to Tout ‘Power of Print’

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704089904575094011040177060.html
Quarter of Americans Get News on Cellphones

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-digital-journo1-2010mar01,0,1378757.story
ABC News sees a digital future

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/actors-unions-move-toward-joint-bargaining-agreement.html
Actors unions move toward joint bargaining agreement

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/abc-news-to-cut-half-its-domestic-correspondents-shut-down-all-bureaus-except-washington.html
ABC News to cut half its domestic correspondents, close bricks-and-mortar bureaus [Updated]


4 posted on 03/01/2010 2:28:17 AM PST by abb ("What ISN'T in the news is often more important than what IS." Ed Biersmith, 1942 -)
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...afflicted by a drop in advertising revenue.

...How do you generate more profit?

Which came first the audience or the advertising revenues?

Try giving the audience what they want (facts,truth), not what you think they want. :)

5 posted on 03/01/2010 2:35:10 AM PST by DaveArk
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To: abb

http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Online-News.aspx
Understanding the Participatory News Consumer

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=142332
Web Publishers Left With Little After Middlemen Split Ad Spoils

http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=142330
Leno’s Triumphant Return to Late Night May No Longer Matter


6 posted on 03/01/2010 2:40:03 AM PST by abb ("What ISN'T in the news is often more important than what IS." Ed Biersmith, 1942 -)
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To: DaveArk

I’m just about finished with the first of a three volume history of broadcasting.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Broadcasting-United-States-Babel/dp/0195004744
A History of Broadcasting in the United States: Volume 1: A Tower of Babel. To 1933 (Vol 1)
Erik Barnouw (Author)

It deals extensively on how broadcast advertising came to be and its evolution. Very informative.

Broadcast advertising was originated by AT&T and called “toll broadcasting.”

http://earlyradiohistory.us/sec020.htm
Financing Radio Broadcasting (1898-1927)


7 posted on 03/01/2010 2:51:41 AM PST by abb ("What ISN'T in the news is often more important than what IS." Ed Biersmith, 1942 -)
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To: DaveArk

” NBC, the one network with a cable news channel, MSNBC “

Wow,I thought Fox was a network with a news channel, hows Fox News doing anyway?


8 posted on 03/01/2010 2:54:05 AM PST by singletrack (..................................................................)
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To: abb

Propaganda is popular only with the propagandists, the liars they flatter and their dogs.


9 posted on 03/01/2010 3:04:26 AM PST by sergeantdave
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Comment #10 Removed by Moderator

To: abb
"I just looked out at the next five years and was concerned that we could not sustain doing what we were doing," said David Westin, the president of ABC News

Providing cover and free propoganda for Democrats and Socialists...

11 posted on 03/01/2010 3:10:36 AM PST by OrioleFan (Republicans believe every day is the 4th of July, democrats believe every day is April 15)
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To: abb

You laid-off Nitwork Newsers should do what I did when I got sacked ... find another way to contribute to society in a meaningful way as a self appointed libtard expert in everything.

Courage.

12 posted on 03/01/2010 3:10:56 AM PST by Zakeet (Patches Kennedy isn't running for Congress again for medical reasons -- voters are sick of him)
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To: abb
Their discussion of the early days when they were debating whether to have subscribers or something else. “The wired network was too expensive.”

I have my broadband provided wireless (directional wifi antennas),phone is cellular, and my TV is satellite.

I built the house in 1998 with all the wires to network with anything. That has been largely abandoned.

Now the wired providers (AT&T and Cox cable) are providing all those services. Isn't the free market great? :)

13 posted on 03/01/2010 3:16:43 AM PST by DaveArk
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To: abb

How many people does it take to receive a biased news report from AP and send it to someone who reads it.


14 posted on 03/01/2010 3:34:15 AM PST by Venturer
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To: singletrack
Wow,I thought Fox was a network with a news channel, hows Fox News doing anyway?

Outstanding, obviously! It's amazing, Fox reports the news fairly and rakes it in. The other networks are leftist biased to the hilt and are going under. You'd think these journalist and executives would even remotely get a clue, but apparently ignorant, arrogant dumbasses never learn!

15 posted on 03/01/2010 3:47:26 AM PST by sirchtruth (Freedom is not free)
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To: abb
But with news available more places than ever, on cable channels and Internet sites, and with revenue challenged by heavy dependence on shrinking advertising dollars, the future for the news divisions at ABC and CBS remains deeply insecure. What has to scare them is something that happened over the weekend. if you had tuned in during the first hours of the aftermath of the Chilean earthquake you will have noted a couple of things.

1. That only CNN dropped their prerecorded BS and carried TV Chile's live feed, which I watched via live streaming video on the internet. The rest for the first couple hours just did cut ins. Once they all went live they relied heavily on people's cell phone/downloaded video and twitter reports. To those of us with the knowledge and capability we got news from the scene faster then the cable news and regular networks could provide and without it being filtered through a bunch of helmet haired anchorpeople.

“Long term, it’s going to get harder for these guys to exist as they are currently constructed, with the exception of NBC because it can offload the costs on MSNBC,” Michael Nathanson, an industry analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said.

Michael Nathanson is wrong. NBC Universal can not afford it any more then any of the others. The only "black" at MSNBC is the black hole the money is getting sucked into. If the Comcast deal goes through I would suspect that MSNBC will fold. The problem for all of these entities is that the business model they are operating on is about as outdated as the horse and buggy. My broadcast production professor told my class the very first day (many moons ago) that broadcasting is probably the worst managed business in the world because it makes money no matter what and making money provides cover for very bad business practices. Well, those days are over and the accountants are telling them that something has to give and alot of people have to go. Under the "current" model (which has not changed much from the 1960's) they have crap tons of assignment desk editors, video editors, camera crews, ENG/SNG truck operators, associate producers, etc.-a virtual Versailles of servants that are no longer needed. The days of reporters going on assignment with a cameraman, an audio operator, a ENG truck and a producer are over. As Chile proved they will get their butts kicked by someone with a cell phone or a video camera and a YouTube account.

Another thing that is over are the days of the overpaid anchors and reporters. They can no longer afford the exorbitant salaries they pay these people because they no longer bring in the viewers, in fact they have served to turn off many viewers with their condescension and arrogance. Money talks and right now what the owners of these entities are hearing from their accountants is that bubble headed bleach blonds like Katie Couric and rabid Keith Olberman are not worth what they are getting paid.

The one big question is how long will it take the owners and management of the networks to figure out that their biggest problem with their news divisions is their overt bias which is so bad that no one trusts them anymore to report the facts. I am going to guess that they will never figure it out-they, like their news staffs, all live in the gated community of the mind that exists in Hollywood and the upper west side of Manhattan. They simply can not understand why the rest of us do not see the world the way they do-these people know more about tribes in Africa then they do about the majority of the people in this country. For most of them we might as well be Martians, that is how little they know and understand us. They also can not understand why we do not bow before and blindly follow them-after all, in their minds they are our "intellectual betters" and we should blindly believe them and follow them.

16 posted on 03/01/2010 4:16:09 AM PST by Nahanni
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To: abb

The only thing I can say, is: MSNBC is actually making a profit??? They must be operating on a shoe string. Whith their audience numbers, even that can’t last much longer.


17 posted on 03/01/2010 4:17:00 AM PST by DGHoodini (Iran Azadi!)
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To: abb

Also, I bet that with every mass layoff, these networks will get ideologically purer (e.g., even more Liberal). In the end they will just be hermatically sealed echo chambers serving an ever smaller audience. Newsweek is already the textbook case for this.


18 posted on 03/01/2010 4:24:24 AM PST by rbg81 (DRAIN THE SWAMP!!)
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To: abb

So?...Why is this death taking so long?


19 posted on 03/01/2010 4:34:03 AM PST by wintertime (Good ideas win! Why? Because people are not stupid!)
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To: abb
Andrew Heyward said of the ABC cuts: “The real issue after this is what will drive growth? How do you generate more profit?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Is Andrew serious?

How about being “fair and balanced”?

How about covering some of the stories the Fox refuses to cover? ( homosexual outrages and Obama’s eligibility)

20 posted on 03/01/2010 4:38:31 AM PST by wintertime (Good ideas win! Why? Because people are not stupid!)
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