Appointment TV is all about the big guns. Although you seem to have missed the fact that Extreme Makeover on ABC drew very high ratings while opposite the Grammys, there are plenty of big guns out there that aren’t a few big annual events. There are plenty of shows out there drawing solid appointment TV ratings weekly.
Anybody with a camera might be able to “cover” a news story but can they make it look like a professional job? Or will it look like some guy with a camera in his trunk is doing it? People might say they’re OK with jiggly camera but that’s assuming all other things aren’t equal. Jiggly camera AND first on the scene is acceptable but in order to get the timeliness you need a pre-existing news division that’s capable of setting up the remotes. If you’re last to the party and the lowest quality broadcast you’re going to lose the viewers and look stupid.
I wasn’t talking about money spent buying newspaper companies. I was talking about the billions spent buying FCC licenses, now 4 times as many FCC licenses because of the switch to digital. Those dumb deals have absolutely nothing to do with what I was talking about.