For more than a quarter-century, we’ve been hearing predictions about the demise of cable—and with it, cable news.
A Pew Research article from 2000 showed the trends began more than 30 years ago, when consumption of broadcast and local news began to decline, and users began to get more news (and entertainment) online.
These trends have only increased since, to the extent that the long decline in cable news may finally be reaching its end.
“This week might well mark the last time we ever care so much about cable TV news,” veteran media analyst Alan Wolk noted in April, following the surprising departures of Tucker Carlson from Fox News and Don Lemon from CNN.
Wolk wasn’t saying cable news was necessarily a terrible product; it was an obsolete one on an obsolete platform. While he didn’t predict that the death of cable was imminent, he made it clear it might be time to start looking for hospice care.
“…eventually, probably sometime in the next five to ten years, cable TV is going to stop being worth it for all parties involved and will, for all intents and purposes, disappear,” Wolk wrote.
End of Days?
The decline of cable is obviously bad news for the six largest cable news networks (Fox, CNN, Fox Business, MSNBC, CNBC, and HLN).
Paul Farhi of the Washington Post points out that fewer people watching cable news doesn’t just mean less ad revenue, which accounted for $2.6 billion in revenue collectively for the cable giants last year. It also means less revenue from cable providers, who provide cable news networks the majority of their revenue ($4 billion) through licensing fees.
“…the day could soon come when an exodus of cable subscribers leaves cable operators unable to afford the hefty license fees that those news programmers now command,” Farhi writes.
This is obviously bad news for cable news companies. Ditto for talking heads like Jake Tapper and Sean Hannity, both of whom pull in eight-figure salaries.
For consumers, content creators, and society generally, however, the collapse of cable news is nothing to be feared.
Hellbound and Down 