The way that people consume television is changing. Viewership is down, particularly of the major networks. Affiliations with particular shows have become more segmented, demographically speaking. More people are looking to other venues to pass their leisure time, including the Internet. More people are consuming television through mobile devices and on tablets. This has all reduced the relevance of standard broadcast television channels.
¶ … future of broadcast network television is and suggest some possible strategies that networks (not cable) might engage in to increase their viewership and maximize their profit potentials
What is the future of broadcast television?
Traditional broadcast television, for all intents and purposes is dead. Yes, it still exists in some forms: there have been 'must see' shows in recent years, such as Lost and Modern Family. But the nation will never again huddle around a few television stations, all united by a common bond of viewership. During the 1970s and 1960s, television was the central uniting thread linking Americans of all races, creeds, and economic classes. Everyone stopped to watch the Vietnam War unfold on the news, to see racial issues dramatized in All in the Family or to watch hot new artists on American Bandstand. Today, television is atomized and segmented. Moreover, even the best of television does not have the cultural centrality and significance that it once did, in the pre-Internet era. The new vocabulary that has been integrated into the common discourse is all virtual: 'meme,' 'viral,' and, of course, 'Google.' The online world is far more culturally significant than any single television program.
Even before the Internet, because of the ability to videotape movies and shows, and even simply to engage in channel-surfing more easily than before, network television was growing more segmented in its positioning (Hilmes 124). Because of this segmentation, television has inevitably grown less relevant. What was so meaningful about broadcast television in earlier eras was its unifying, democratic quality and the way it provided all Americans with a common cultural language. That is no longer the case.
During the 1990s, broadcast television's greatest fear is that it would be eclipsed by rising cable viewership. Today, the fear by the major television stations and cable companies is that viewers will do away with television altogether, and confine their viewing to what they can see for free on YouTube, supplemented by a Netflix subscription. Television can be enjoyed 'for free' (or at least without additional expense) purely online. The online viewer has the additional delights of being able to sample international programs, even collapsing the national divides which used to separate audiences. In the past, the U.S. was viewed as a beacon of culture and freedom (or poor taste) because of the worldwide syndication of its shows (Parks 115). Now it is equally possible for a U.S. consumer to watch shows online from the BBC or internationally just as easily as homegrown shows, without waiting for them to be syndicated.
For an additional, relatively small fee of $8 per month, "you get unlimited access to Netflix's instant streaming catalog of 20,000 films and TV shows, which you can watch on your computer, iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, and any other Netflix-enabled home theater device, such as a Wii or certain Blu-Ray Disc players" (Moskovciak 2011). Since more and more people are using mobile technology to access television, watching television purely online and through streaming content is an popular, inexpensive way to completely 'cut the cord' of network television. Given the expense of subscribing to cable, this has become a more attractive option.
The experience of how we consume television has grown much more judicious and has also been relieved of past time constraints. People can select only their favorite programs to see and choose the times when they view them (Lotz 241). Once upon a time, having an eccentric schedule, like that of a student or a bartender, meant that one was relegated to certain 'late night' programs, making the individual part of a particular television culture based upon his or her schedule, just like children were all united by the bond of watching Saturday morning cartoons. Yes, there are still 'tribes of affinity' today based upon what programs people watch (Lotz 246). But those tribes have grown vastly more diluted. Someone who loves edgy comedy shows in the 1960s might find a common dialogue with other people who liked Laugh-In, but given the ubiquity of Comedy Central and seemingly infinite numbers of comedy shows and stand-up acts, it can no longer be assumed that every person with an alternative sense of humor watches The Daily Show.
The disassociation of cultural significance from large swathes of viewership is also manifested in the fact that many shows with a clear cultural impact like Sex in the City actually did not have very many viewers, because they appeared on cable. It is not necessary for a show to be on a network or even attract the majority of the viewing audience to have enough cultural cache to spawn a cupcake craze and two feature films (Lotz 218). Cable television also provided a more robust forum for free expression, including frank discussions about sexuality that were prohibited on standard network programming. Even PBS was more daring in terms of discussing themes such as homosexuality than network television (Marcus 58).
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