Radio

You remember Radio, don’t you?

Radio was that nifty gadget that broadcast news, entertainment, and music wherever you went. You listened to it in the kitchen while getting ready for work in the morning, and in the car while commuting. Radio was around for a long time. It documented the battles of World War II for the living rooms of America, bringing, for the first time, the horrors of war to the parents of the kids over there fighting as it was happening. That was astonishing. It had never been done.

Radio went on to bring us life as it happened. My generation was probably the last to gather round the on speakers on snowy mornings, cheering like mad when our school was declared canceled. We listened on election nights, to hear who was in or out in our town, too small for the big city media to care about. We listened to local talk shows during the day, to debate why our tax dollars were being used for this, instead of that. We listened on our commutes, to see if we should take I-93 or Route 128 to get to where we were going. It was a community.

Then Radio got greedy. It lobbied the government to get rid of the ownership rules, so a handful of companies could control all the stations in America. Then those companies tried to squeeze more profits out of stations, replacing local talk shows with syndicated shows like Rush Limbaugh. That made money. So then the companies pruned the newsrooms, arranging for two or three anchors to handle the news on multiple stations. There was no budget for street reporting. After a while, the conglomerates asked — why bother with local at all? Handing over those top of the hour newscasts to the national networks. As for music — well, that could be cheaped down, too. DJs were canned, and replaced with automation systems. What played on the classic rock station in Detroit was played on the classic rocker in New York.

After a while, Radio sounded the same in every town. It didn’t sound good. It sounded cheap. The same voices, up and down the the dial. The same subtle clicks as the computer shifted from canned music to canned announcements to commercials. After a while, the listeners stopped tuning in. Why bother, when nothing interesting, innovative, or exciting is going on? An iPod can give you music, without the commercials.  And a person who slowly falls out of touch with the news no longer cares about it.

If this sounds familliar, it should.  Now, this is network television’s story.   TV:   You’ve blown up the vast majority of your international news bureaus. This, when what happens abroad affects us back in the States in a way not seen since the 50’s. Your morning news programs have descended into something best branded as infotainment, where anchors undergo pedicures involving flesh-eating fish, and the Today show is essentially free entertainment for tourists on the streets of New York. You’ve made sure people don’t understand national and international news, cutting your own throat as the demand for hard news ebbs. People are getting their TV news dose from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, shows that manage to be informative and mesmerizing. Not to mention — the questions asked of newsmakers on those shows are much more pointed than the softballs tossed on the nightly news. Your prime-time schedule is no longer built on scripted shows — instead largely consisting of a motley collection of characters willing to sell their souls for a few moments of airtime. NBC attempted the cheap road, sticking Jay Leno into the ten o’clock slot. The argument — from network brass — was that it may not attract a big audience, but would attract enough of an audience to make it’s inexpensive production worthwhile. We all know how that worked.  Instead of holding onto a gem like the cop drama Southland, nursing it, and letting it build an audience; NBC let it go to TNT, where it has a devout following among a desired demographic.  Your desired demographics are fleeing to cable  —  turning to AMC for Mad Men and Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead. They’re turning to HBO for Boardwalk Empire and True Blood. Viewers want to be surprised, and charmed, and thrilled, and swept up by emotion. You’re still giving them Survivor, which jumped the shark years ago; you’re still giving them Desperate Housewives, which hasn’t been fun for a couple of seasons; you’re still giving them The Bachelor, and pretending it’s a romantic thrill;  until very recently, you were  still giving them Two and Half Men, and pretending it’s funny. Your building is on fire, and you’re not listening to the smoke alarms. You’re losing your audience to the Internet, which offers entertainment far more original and fun than the stuff you’re putting on the air. You’ve lost your reputation as the go-to place for shows that trigger laughter and surprise; for news that isn’t lifted right off a politician’s press release.

Keep it up, Network TV, and it won’t be long before you’re on Skid Row drinking cheap gin from a paper bag, just like Radio.