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Cable News: Who Cares?

T

TheBigA

Here's an article questioning the fact that American political thought is being shaped by three cable news channels that collectively have an audience of less than 4 million people. It's obvious that the president spends a lot of his day watching cable news, but should that affect our laws or policies? Is this democracy or tyranny of a few? Does the cable news soap opera matter to anyone besides the few who watch?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...cc429a-7cbe-11e9-8ede-f4abf521ef17_story.html
 
TheBigA said:
Here's an article questioning the fact that American political thought is being shaped by three cable news channels that collectively have an audience of less than 4 million people. It's obvious that the president spends a lot of his day watching cable news, but should that affect our laws or policies? Is this democracy or tyranny of a few? Does the cable news soap opera matter to anyone besides the few who watch?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...cc429a-7cbe-11e9-8ede-f4abf521ef17_story.html
Click to expand...

It obviously matters to the politicians, lobbyists, and others of influence (and their wannabes) in Washington and probably the state capitols to some extent. Same goes for Ancient Modulation talk radio, which has the same demographics, and the Sunday morning OTA network babblefests, which are little-watched by the general public, but are popular with those that matter.

In the case of the cable-noise channels, I'm willing to bet that if they didn't receive subscriber fees, CNN would have been gone 20 years ago, and Fox Noise and BSNBC never would have started up to begin with.
 
Interestingly, the Canadian equivalent of Fox News (Sun News) failed when they weren't given "mandatory carriage" on the cable systems. We see in the US that the Fox challengers from the right don't seem to be gaining too much ground, other than perhaps splitting the same narrow demos (OAN, etc.)

My frustration with CNN is it seems they devote a lot of airtime to shouting "panel discussions" and not much time to what they used to do well, coverage of actual news.
 
Andy Travis said:
We see in the US that the Fox challengers from the right don't seem to be gaining too much ground, other than perhaps splitting the same narrow demos (OAN, etc.)
Click to expand...

Because cable subscriptions are declining. So new challengers aren't seeking cable carriage. I agree with your comment about "panel discussions." They're tough to watch. Too much arguing, no real information. I'm also concerned that there are a lot of real news stories that are being ignored because these three channels focus all their energy and airtime on the Washington circus.
 
KeithE4 said:
It obviously matters to the politicians, lobbyists, and others of influence (and their wannabes) in Washington and probably the state capitols to some extent. Same goes for Ancient Modulation talk radio, which has the same demographics, and the Sunday morning OTA network babblefests, which are little-watched by the general public, but are popular with those that matter.

In the case of the cable-noise channels, I'm willing to bet that if they didn't receive subscriber fees, CNN would have been gone 20 years ago, and Fox Noise and BSNBC never would have started up to begin with.
Click to expand...

Fox news didn't make a profit during it's first few years until it starting getting more placement on cable systems, advertiser boycotts won't shut them down since they don't even get much from those compared to the subscriber fees
 
TheBigA said:
Because cable subscriptions are declining. So new challengers aren't seeking cable carriage. I agree with your comment about "panel discussions." They're tough to watch. Too much arguing, no real information. I'm also concerned that there are a lot of real news stories that are being ignored because these three channels focus all their energy and airtime on the Washington circus.
Click to expand...

the cable news channels might face the problem cigarette manufactures face trying get to new smokers, younger viewers, liberal or conservative, have no need to cable news, the hot young female anchors on FNC are for the old horny white men
 
That's not meaningfully different than 40 years ago where political thought was shaped by a half-dozen magazines. Except that back then Joe Sixpack didn't subscribe to National Journal or Mother Jones and therefore did not subsidize the bottom line of those magazines.
 
The influence of the cable news channels goes much farther than the immediate cable audience; those stories are shared all over social media
 
gr8oldies said:
The influence of the cable news channels goes much farther than the immediate cable audience; those stories are shared all over social media
Click to expand...

Some of the fake news stories actually originate on social media, and then get picked up by mainstream. Such as the Pelosi video. That's one of the problems, because the social media sites aren't as responsible as the mainstream sites about checking facts. So cable news picks up a video from social media and airs it, then other sources quote them. That was also the case with the Covington kids a few months ago. The kids are suing mainstream media, but the video originated on social media.
 
Related to the above, today the president reacts to a tweet from a college professor that contains a made-up quote attributed to Trump. He calls out the media, says it's "journalistic malpractice," and wants changes in libel laws:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-seizes-on-nyu-professors-tweet-to-push-change-of-libel-laws

So because the president retweets it, Fox News picks it up and does a story on the false quote. Who in the media is guilty of malpractice? Twitter? Fox News? The professor isn't in the media. He's just speaking freely, as all Americans can, protected by the first amendment. Should the tweet be removed because it's been admitted to be fake? Who is responsible? Is the news media being manipulated by social media, which is then having an affect on legislation and policy? Is this democracy or the tyranny of a very small number of people?
 
Don CT said:
How many people tune into talk radio vs the cable talkers?
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Enough to justify their existence. And those geezer demos in Flyover Country are guaranteed voters, mostly GOP. This is opposed to those in the Sacred Sales Demos[sup]TM[/sup] who listen to FM and the online kiddies who don't vote as much, certainly not as Republicans.
 
TheBigA said:
Related to the above, today the president reacts to a tweet from a college professor that contains a made-up quote attributed to Trump. He calls out the media, says it's "journalistic malpractice," and wants changes in libel laws:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-seizes-on-nyu-professors-tweet-to-push-change-of-libel-laws

So because the president retweets it, Fox News picks it up and does a story on the false quote. Who in the media is guilty of malpractice? Twitter? Fox News? The professor isn't in the media. He's just speaking freely, as all Americans can, protected by the first amendment. Should the tweet be removed because it's been admitted to be fake? Who is responsible? Is the news media being manipulated by social media, which is then having an affect on legislation and policy? Is this democracy or the tyranny of a very small number of people?
Click to expand...

Ian Bremmer is a frequent writer in the major newspapers and and is a Times magazine columnist, he is definitely in the media.
 
TheBigA said:
Here's an article questioning the fact that American political thought is being shaped by three cable news channels that collectively have an audience of less than 4 million people. It's obvious that the president spends a lot of his day watching cable news, but should that affect our laws or policies? Is this democracy or tyranny of a few? Does the cable news soap opera matter to anyone besides the few who watch?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...cc429a-7cbe-11e9-8ede-f4abf521ef17_story.html
Click to expand...

But wait isn't local TV station investors like Sinclair, Gray, and Hearst also have pundits too like Greta Van Susteren for the Gray owned stations, Mark Hyman for the Sinclair Owned stations and Soledad O'Brien for the Hearst Owned stations. I heard of past studies saying that Local TV station owners have a greater influence on voters than Cable News/Talk channels but that study took place right when the Tribune/Sinclair talks was political issue and was later called off for regulatory reasons.
 
bobjim45 said:
Ian Bremmer is a frequent writer in the major newspapers and and is a Times magazine columnist, he is definitely in the media.
Click to expand...

But he used his personal site, not representing the media. At what point is someone simply a private citizen, expressing their personal views?

Is there someone in the govt trolling personal social media sites? The tweet didn't hashtag the president.
 
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