For last class, we were asked to find a New York Times article that relates to our "beat" assigned the first week of classes. My assigned beat is cable television, which I am excited about for many reasons. Primarily, I took a class this summer entitled "TV and American Culture" which explored television from its birth to contemporary times. I learned a lot about the values of Americans as seen through the evolution of television in our history. It will be fascinating to explore cable television through a different lens-taking the broader perspective of mass communications into account.
The article I chose to read and comment on is entitled "Cable Channels Gain on Broadcast Networks" by Brian Stelter and can be found at this link:
http://biz.yahoo.com/nytimes/080625/1194788183535.html?.v=19
This article, as the title suggests, discusses how cable channels are surpassing broadcast networks in popularity and advance advertising sales. These gains represent a shift already in place from broadcast to cable influenced by several key factors. First, the ratings gap has been narrowing, resulting on some cable networks setting new ratings records. Second, this increased popularity of cable channels can be attributed to the fragmentation of media, which encourages advertisers to spread their reach across many media and venues. Third, many new niche channels have been developed with the hopes of accruing more viewers in specific interest topics rather than general programming. Finally, the writer's strike that broadcast channels suffered last winter allowed cable channels to produce fresh programming that looked more attractive to viewers.
An important element that I noticed toward the end of the article is the integrated television and online packages that cable channels are employing. This way, they can accumulate revenue and viewers from a variety of media sources. This strategy struck me because it reminded me of our recent discussion of media multitasking. The media is clearly taking steps to exploit our short attention spans and ability to absorb partial media messages in multiple forums.
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Your grasp of this development is remarkable, Violet. You did a great job of articulating where cable is expanding and why. I'd like this discussed in class because it shows the complexities of the competition and how many factors come into play. I had not thought about how the writer's strike helped cable. That's huge.
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