An Unsteady Future for Broadcast

[DearAbby]

Oprah Winfrey is fleeing broadcast television for cable. NBC, once arguably the biggest cultural tastemaker in the United States, is being shopped to Comcast, the country’s largest cable company.

Have we finally reached a tipping point that suggests a remarkable decline in the fortunes of broadcast television in America?

In the NBC Universal deal, in which General Electric is negotiating to sell a majority stake of its media business to Comcast, it is the cable channels — USA, Bravo, SyFy, MSNBC and CNBC — that are seen as the most valuable, not the NBC broadcast network, which is mired in fourth place in the ratings among the four major networks.

Most analysts and many executives agree that the economic model of broadcast television — which relies much more heavily on advertising than cable — is severely fractured. What they are wondering now is if it is irreparably broken.

more at link
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/business/media/21network.html?_r=1&src=twr

[ddeclue]

1. That's because all decent programming was replaced 5 years ago by "reality" TV crap.

[DearAbby]

2. That is about the time I stopped watching

what I do watch is now online.