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KMA,
I think you do have a good point in that the larger number of media sources, be it cable or satellite or internet, have forced a more competitive marketplace.
Perhaps the 'big 3' were used to aiming at a third of the market share, but with so many competitors out there, no one can reach that position. Perhaps psychologically they are still in that mode of considering that as their benchmark, and thus their continued aim to please all of the people all of the time.
That brings up an interesting concept though. With the multiple media sources, it would stand to reason that catering to a specific audience would bring success. Certainly, this can be seen amongst specialty broadcasters, from MTV to ESPN to TCN to the myriad of conservative talk radio stations. They do pretty well, but aren't too concerned about seeking a broader audience.
Is it harder now to attract a broad argument. In the past you only had to have broader appeal than two other programs also trying to gain broad audiences. Now you are competing against myriad special-interest broadcasting that attracts a lot of people (not to one but in agregate). Does it make good business sense for a news outlet to continue to seek that broad market if it appears to be diminishing? Or is there really a demand for broad objective reporting?
Fox succeeds because it has successfully identified its audience and is telling them exactly what they want to hear exactly how they want to hear it: we are winning the war, the president's a hero, and America uber alles, and you can trust us because this is objective fair and balanced (don't sue me, please!) reporting.
Do we want the other networks to follow Fox's lead and target specific audiences with tailored reporting? I think we all like the idea of specialist networks, so we can find something catering to our interests on the TV, but where do we draw the line between entertainment and news in this society?
I'm all for better feedback to media companies, and for letting advertisers know directly what we think. I personally restrain from the advertiser route usually; I don't boycott companies just because they advertise on Rush, especially if they are advertising across a broad spectrum. It is not their fault that Rush has listeners, and that they need to access those listeners to get their message out. But we have to find ways to have effective voice as citizens, and it does work.
__________________
"Don't tell me we're so blind we cannot see that this is my land! I can't pretend that it's nothing to do with me.
And this is your land, you can't close your eyes to this hypocracy.
Yes this is my land, I won't pretend that it's nothing to do with me.
'Cause this is our land, we can't close our eyes to the things we don't wanna see."
- DTH
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