Doesn't network ranking have to do with advertising?
My memory on this is fading but I think that yes it does. And of course, how many advertisers you can get on your shows, and how much they pay to be there, is directly tied to how your shows & network have performed in the most recent ratings; ie: how many eyeballs could you attract to see those show and the ads attached. Something like that.
Dying is definitely a strong term.
I think more accurately put, its evolving and will continue to do so. Network TV has a strong advantage in some key areas and eventually there will be network executives who understand the changing media landscape enough to capitalize on the strengths and minimize the weaknesses better than the current crop of execs.
When I worked at NBC, I was directly involved in some concepts that were never implemented that were pretty cool and groundbreaking ideas. The ol'skool TV execs were threatened by the internet and all things interactive and saw it overall as a distraction from their mainline business objectives. Warren Littlefield and Don Ohlmeyer were particularly dense in these areas in my limited experience. From my exterior perspective, I don't think NBC's Jeff Zucker gets it today either.
Ironically enough, the one NBC executive I encountered who really understood the possibilities of the merging of media was Jamie Tarses. It was one thing she 'got'. But we all know what happened to her...
Too many people see it as TV vs. everything else. It is never as simple as that.
The correct answer is TV + everything else.
Someone will figure that out and do it right eventually. And then it will be the 'cyclical' thing I referred to earlier in this thread. When that happens, industry rags will do stories on the rebirth & resurgence of network television etc.
I have a LIFE Magazine from 1948 that predicts TV will never catch on and never compete with radio effectively and may be doomed to failure. And then I have another article that was published some years later that predicts that 'radio as we know it today is doomed'. That article was written over 25 years ago.
That article actually was right of course, after a fashion at least. Radio did evolve into a completely different animal. Some would argue for the worse. As someone who is a bit a student of media in all its forms and who now works in that same radio business, I agree somewhat. Or at least I long for some of the things that are gone as part of those changes. It's hard to separate the emotional connections.
We went thru this massive automation phase, but then that went away. And most recently, at least stateside, radio went thru the Clear-Channel consolidation phase, but even that now is disappearing as Clear Channel frees itself of hundreds of licenses. The process will create once again, what CC got rid of -- local & regional pockets of ownership. The key to radio is being live and local. National ownership with all kinds of syndicated programming couldn't accomplish those two goals; nor could automation.
I harp on cyclical, but I've seen enough to know that the industry (be it TV, Radio, Movies whatever) is driven in large part by the executive ranks .. and the very nature of the business means those people turn over in big numbers every 10 to 15 years. (often much sooner than that)
And just as the staffing is cyclical, so are these arguments proclaiming the death of any given form of media or delivery method.
Radio was going to be the death of newspapers and record sales. Movies supposedly marked the end of live theatre. Television was going to kill off radio and/or the movies. Cable was going to be the network-tv-killer. Home video was going to ravage the movie industry. Satellite was going to kill cable. Pay Per View was going to kill the home video sales/rental business. TIVO was going to change EVERYTHING.
And of course, computers & the internet were going to team up to kill network AND cable TV, radio, the movies, the music industry, newspapers, magazines, the video rental business, cable TV, satellite, TIVO, your home phone service, Kodak's entire photography business, the adult novelty store, your local grocery store and probably books too!
None of things happened in the dramatic fashion envisioned.
Instead, each has changed the media world in both big and small ways. So I can't honestly think that the internet/iPod/YouTube/whatever will kill network TV. But it sure will change things. That's how it goes.
If you don't like change, stay the heck away from a job in the media industry.
With each introduction of a new media form, or method of delivery, it changed the landscape considerably and sometimes yes even dramatically, but it didn't kill those industries in one fell swoop. Instead, the economics changed, the audience shifted and frequently the size scaled, those who couldn't change or evolve in a profitable fashion failed or were bought, the rest carried on and the industries evolved.
Corporate natural selection if you will; the free market & capitalism in action. The only alternative I can think of is communism.
Network TV, just like radio, movies, newspapers, books and live theatre, ain't dying. It's changing and probably in some pretty substantial ways.
It may not be the network TV we're used to or the one we liked. And in a few years we may not even recognize it all, but it ain't going anywhere.
Knox
Carry on folks!!
