Posted on 12/22/2006 9:58:15 AM PST by LibWhacker
Dear Mr. McManus:
I don't have to tell you that things have changed a lot since the glory days of CBS News when it sat atop the ratings and Walter Cronkite was "the most trusted man in America." Back then there were only a handful of over-the-air broadcast channels and the Big Three networks presided over something of a shared monopoly in early evening news. TV was in its adolescence and viewers were less sophisticated about the medium. Although there were fewer gadgets (not even videotape), newscasts had more substance.
Today, the mix of news and entertainment leans increasingly toward entertainment. The conventional wisdom is that audiences have fleeting, MTV attention spans and less serious interests. With a multitude of cable and satellite channels, the Internet and 2 4/7 news, networks like yours have seen a steady erosion of their audience. This isn't your fault. It was inevitable. But you're still in business and will continue to be profitable for at least a few more years.
(Excerpt) Read more at rockymountainnews.com ...
--great article--
The problem is that their main focus is not on making more money, nor strictly on market share. Their main focus is furthuring an agenda. They may have to do it making less money or having less marketshare, but so be it. Of course, they would like to make more money/marketshare.... there just MUST BE Something they could twiddle to keep their agenda AND make more money, they just havn't found it yet.
There's no such thing as a "shared monopoly." It's an oxymoron; something that's shared is by definition not a monopoly. The word you're looking for is "oligarchy," and while I know it's not as catchy, it has the advantage of being precise.
As my daughter says: "Yea, like that's gonna happen".
Oligopoly, I should have said. If I'm gonna be smug about precision, I oughta actually use some.
FNC still skews left....just not as much.
The could have hired a bunch of newbies from their affiliates for 1% of what they are paying Couric. They would have been a breath of fresh air instead of the halitosis we are getting from Couric and her ilk.
I personally believe that if one of the big 3 were more balanced, their success would move the other 2.
Nice comedy, but the fact is the people who make up network news are virtually all libs. A leopard can't change its spots, and libs can't change how they look at the world. They're not just after ratings, they've got an agenda to get across. And the agenda is not conservative.
Everyone on FR has been saying this for years. If the NY Times just told the truth, they would sell an additional million copies per day.
If MSNBC got rid of Chrissy and hired me and let me run an hour program my own way, I would double Matthews viewership in six months at 1/4 the pay.
Perky Katie is about to experience a condition with CBS known as an Arkansas divorce. Someone is fixin to lose a trailer.I have a feeling it will be someone other than CBS.
CBS would do well to talk to my friend Dr Doug Tarpley at Biola University and formerly of Regents. He's cranking out fine students as fast as he can and they would do well to snag some before they get beaten down by standard liberal newsroom culture.
http://www.biola.edu/news/experts/expert.cfm?n=doug_tarpley
Excellent article -- especially the part about how they should have hired Brit Hume instead of Katie Couric.
That is why he suggested they should hire someone who runs in broader circles than the clowns currently on the big three.
But they don't want to sell a million additional copies. They want to mold public opinion to help usher in a new, post-modernist era...in which they don't have to work for a living any more. ;)
I would bet that the libs who run things believe that they're not liberal enough. You'd have to get new owners to change things.
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