Television -- As We Know It -- Is Finished

There will be re-runs of Johnathan Ross shows soon!

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Network may or may not bring all their own program. If not distributed, to the production companies like Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures their content to different networks and it is normal that some production house programs may have two or more competing networks.
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I dont even watch regular tv anymore, all the good shows are free online to watch haha. Anyways i think it helps me watch less tv
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I'm embracing it. Hurry for technology. It makes everything a lot easier to sift through all the garbage that ivan is talkin about above, and find . what you really want

I canceled my TV cable service and get free TV over the internet...maybe cooking will be the same way in the future?
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TV is losing by not producing innovative serials, most of them are reality tv shows. And almost all of them want to portray normal life situations as extraordinary dilemma, or a life and death situation. All this is okay for a short time but gets boring eventually... And hence lesser numbers think that TV is a good alternative for entertainment.
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Well, I think for many people including me it is dead long ago in Any way. It is nice to get asleep on something or take a look at the news, but that's where it is limited for me watching TV.

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Those of us that remember the older shows are the minority. By these networks saving money by putting out all these reality shows it is truly taking the whole network thing and putting a ugly twist on it in my opinion. I guess I am old school.
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This article needs to rely less on anecdotes and more on hard facts and data. I already pay for television and got a lot of advertisers are realizing that there is more to be gained from the internet than from TV advertising.

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TV has just failed to evolve and scripts along with it I'm afraid. I'm so tired of getting to special times of the year to find re-runs all over the place and nothing to really entertain uou. At least the poor reality shows give you a fresh laugh!

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A lot of advertisers are reallising that there is more to be gained from the internet than from TV advertising. TV needs to look at alternative revenue streams - and always strive to provide the best quality programs possible.
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Interesting thoughts - unfortunately while millions of people tune into these reality shows nothing is going to change, creative programs will just be pushed further into obscurity!Fat Face

That's been happening for years now and the networks have been substituting lots of scripted fare with crappy reality shows. The number of scripted dramas hasn't decreased. Most of the ones worth watching are all on cable.

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The only way to sustain viewership is to inject a healthy dose in all types of programming including news.

Jackson,
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Television networks should blame themselves for a lack of views. I have expanded basic cable which means I have over 100 channels to choose from 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I may watch a couple of hours a day and then I am watching some original programming on one of the cable networks. They seem to produce a lot better product. As for reality television, I agree there should be more of it. It means the television will be off even longer while I read a book!

One way that networks could save money is to have a 70's,80's, or 90's night once a week which they reair 3 hours of their top programs from that decade.

A lot of shows are in syndication but many are still not.

The real problem here is the American public. Just look at the top 10 songs on any given week and see that there is rarely anything with substance, just party music. Reality shows keep America well (spoon) fed, fat and happy. Those of us that remember and cherish shows like M.A.S.H. are the minority. By these networks saving money by excreting out all these reality shows in the past decade, they have contributed to their own eventual demises by 'dumbing down' the general public.

PAY WRITERS, not that MESS Paula Abdul! Do the right thing and SAVE SCRIPTED TELEVISION!!

I'm going to go watch Tivo'd "Rescue Me" now...

I already pay for television; it's called satellite reception. And it ain't cheap. If you now want me to pay per show on top of that, forget it. I'll limit my choices to the half dozen I prefer and increase the time I spend with radio and books. Not to mention the computer, which is where I can actually find news instead of the crap TV shovels.

I gave up the bad habit going on seven years ago, I can assure everyone that if TV Networks and all the 24 hour programming leaves the air waves, America's IQ will actually go up a few points...But this industry involves real people who depend on this industry to support their families...Much like the auto industry and all of the other factories and manufacturing jobs that have been taken out of the US to make cheap toys clothes items for American's to buy...Forget the facts that the mass made cheap products are mostly made by the hands of slave labor, children, women and men, but this robbed American's of livable wage jobs to support their families...I thought the posts by Newsview were actually more honest and more informative than the original article about the demise of the Networks...He/She wrote about the core issue which is the economy,...it's not going to go away and America is in denial about the dire situation we are in...This is a house of cards, or the old domino affect, our economy is a shared state, we are connected by it, when it falls, we all fall...The entertainment industry is going to feel this even more as the year goes by...Food and shelter are always going to be a priority over entertainment...People will eventually have to learn how to entertain themselves and each other, without the TV, wow what a concept.....

DAVID SAMS recommends that all home entertainment be pay-per-access and on-demand and that viewers are not loyal to network but to individual shows.

Pray tell how we are going to come to love such shows and get "hooked" if we have to pay each week to "see" if they interest us? Viewers will be far less patient to allow a new series to gain traction if they have to pay for it the way they pay at the Box Office. The Box Office model works because each movie is stand-alone. you don't get that with a series. When everyone from your news provider to your individual series are nickel-and-diming the consumer, the outcome will be less viewership overall, which will translate into less variety, less risk taking and greater stakes (including industry jobs).

Secondly, don't assume the Box Office "cash is King" model works all that well, either. Before the New York City box offices began selling movie theater tickets for over $8 for a matinee, movies in the rest of the US were cheap. Now movies are not only expensive but we have to sit through commercial ads in addition to the usual movie trailers. I went to move movies before the ticket prices started exploding. The movie theater operators, meanwhile, earn most of their revenues from overpriced concessions. Why just last week a local newspaper columnist wrote about how it cost her and her husband $40 to go to a movie and that's SHARING a drink and popcorn!

In the downwardly mobile overall economy, which is the reality of coming to terms with a unequal playing field in a globalized economy, Americans are not going to be so easily wooed by the pay-for-everything model. The beneficiaries will be radio — at least until satellite radio eclipses it. The losers will be media outlets, both in print and online. Television producers and the actors and writers involved will probably be hit somewhere in the middle.

If you still think the Box Office model works, ask yourself why more and more people are figuring out that it is cheaper to just make a note of the movie and buy or rent it when it comes out on DVD. Those sales — Netflix and retail — are increasing because ticket prices are too high. The Box Office won't see much growth when everyone is redirecting their limited discretionary funds to buy all of their network programming and news access online, too.

The only way to sustain viewership is to inject a healthy dose of soft porn and nudity in all types of programming including news.

who gives a fuck.... tv sucks.... read a goddamn book.... nuff said....

Firstly, this illustrates that competition is narrowing each respective piece of the "'pie" left to individual networks.

Secondly, this may be one story about how an industry is coping with the economic squeeze but in every industry similar questions are being raised. It speaks to the reality that's been shooting down the pike for years now: an unsustainable consumer economy wherein low wage service jobs are the norm, and a shrinking professional and creative market has begun to drive the reality closer to home than many educated, dues-paying, hardworking Americans ever imagined. YouTube and the blogosphere may seem to counter this New Reality, but by in large they haven't become the profit generating ventures DOT-com venture capitalists hoped. Citizen journalism is replacing traditional gate keeping to the detriment, some would argue, of the press's essential liberty guarding function as the Fourth Estate. And for lack of financial continuity Americans are losing jobs and homes at unprecedented rates. If this trend keeps up, Hipsters are unlikely to sustain the birthrates of their older siblings and parents' generation. You know how bad a national economy really is when people can't afford to have children or, by the time they do, they are old enough to require expensive forms of fertility treatment. Has this writing not been on the wall for a good solid decade now?

This, in turn, brings me to my third observation wherein network and broadcast media are concerned: Consumers can be conditioned for a time to shoulder more and more of the costs of novel entertainment delivery mechanisms — broadband-equipped LCD screens and whatnot — but is that really a sustainable model or a band-aid? Keep this type of problem solving up and we'll see the day that each major media site requires pay-per-access, each and every entertainment producer is upping their prices and more and more Americans caught in the squeeze will be forced to cut discretionary spending. It is one thing to pay for your "free" media, radio and network television access by purchasing sponsors' products, of which there may arguably be a real need — cleaning products, food, etc. It is another to ask consumers to spend their money patronizing both the advertisers and the networks and broadcast media providers simultaneously.

Keep this up and I foresee a Great Recession that transform into the Great Awakening — at last a mutual understanding at all levels of the American socioeconomic ladder that ours is an overly fragmented economy in which a great transfer of wealth from the First World to denizens of the upwardly mobile Third World is well underfoot precisely because we who live in the First World can hardly compete on the multitude of levels necessary to keep an economy afloat on a global playing field in which much of the producers in the Third World are working far below what would constitute a "living wage" in the US. Mark my word: When the American economy no longer delivers investors, will flee to foreign markets, thereby exacerbating the R&D and advertising dollar crunch in this and every other industry.

Bottom line? This story isn't symptomatic of an industry, it's symptomatic of a national economy in a death spiral. It started in the early 1980s but the ride was good for the folks at the top of the pyramid until we here in America had little left to outsource and insource more cheaply. All the while, working class Americans continued having children, many of whom have graduated in wave after wave from college after college but for whom job security, like pensions and dwindling healthcare benefits, are quickly becoming a bygone notion. This is why, I suspect, the Obama Administration is fixated on healthcare: Because without reform the increasing numbers of downwardly mobile Americans in the years to come — from seniors to hipsters' children — will manifest in the health effects traditionally associated with poverty: from delayed care if any care at all, to diminishing life expectancies.

True, much of what you have read thus far may seem far removed from the scope of the story at first blush. However, much of this is evidentiary of what happens when American workers, whether actors, writers, producers, journalists, automotive or mill workers, are expected to interact in a global market in which an imbalanced playing field favors growth in the Third World and unsustainable consumer consumption practices and massive annual trade deficits in the First. At some point, I hope and pray, we will adopt sober-minded economic policies both domestically and internationally that strive for the "happy medium". For now, however, we here in America are paying the price for our extreme pendulums of economic philosophy. Just as Protectionism was a foolhardy policy in the early 20th Century, unfettered Globalism is a naive practice on the part of First World nations in the 21st.

Eventually the international economic playing field will level out, but not before a great number of us share a more modest standard of living than our parents' generation did. What a view from the top the CEOs of major industry must have, comparing the profitability and expansion measures to that of the past! Undoubtedly this is a reason why billionaire Pete Peterson has penned an open letter in Newsweek magazine in which he states "For the first time in my memory, the majority of the American people join me in believing that, on our current course, our children will not do as well as we have. … The moment is overdue for us to become moral and worthy ancestors." In other words, we have to start behaving and acting like we are our neighbor's keeper — because if the economic stowaways go down, don't be so sure the water won't reach the First Class decks in this Titanic of an American economy.

TV in terms of people/companies that create content for broadcast /transmission to be viewed via visual reception device. TV in its current isn't finished like many of others I agree. Online web TV programmes/content will still be a funded proposition either brands/advertisers fund production costs or pay for streaming costs.

At the moment in the Isle of Man, they are trialling a method that broadband users pay a levy on their broadband service charge. Content is watch and monitored by the ISP so royalty payments can be calculated.

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> LENO would find a home. This is a proven fact.

Yes Leno is at home alright -- LOL

Viewers don't watch networks, they watch personalities and shows. If all four major networks went away, the world would survive. CSI would find a home. 24 would find a home. LOST would find a home. AMERICAN IDOL would find a home. LENO would find a home. This is a proven fact.

The networks should learn something from syndication. WHEEL OF FORTUNE and JEOPARDY still garner higher ratings EVERY NIGHT than most network shows. Why? Because they are on the BEST STATIONS in prime access. They are NOT on networks...they are on individual affiliates. These affiliates leave these shows alone. They don't cancel them or move their time periods around every other week. Viewers have grown up with these shows and love them. These shows have been on for over 25 years and still rank #1 and #2 in syndication.

The #3 show in syndication, Oprah Winfrey, has been on since 1986. Again, people watch Oprah...not channel 7, 9, 12, or whatever. They watch Oprah. If she moves from channel 7 to channel 9...the audience moves with her. Again, this is a proven reality.

The networks have killed themselves. A monkey could do a better job programming a line-up. As with the music biz, the TV biz will soon learn that the viewers are in control. With the Internet and convergence coming (over 100 million TV sets will be Internet-ready by the top of 2011 around the world; 60 million will be TV ready by 2013 in the U.S.), the audience will eliminate the need for network gatekeepers.

Simply put, the audience will decide what to watch, when to watch it, and what they are willing to pay for. Yes, the will pay for it--their favorites. So the real money is in figuring out and monetizing what it is the audience wants. Sound familiar? It is. Just like the BOX OFFICE.

For decades networks have hidden behind "ratings." Guess what, it's no longer about ratings (or, smoke and mirrors), its about reality. The reality is--CASH IS KING.

That, my friends, defines the opportunity of tomorrow. And that's the way it is--at least as I see it.

David Sams
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Oh, boo, hoo. - Pat.

Alan Smithee's third graph says it all. Huzzah!

First of all, it's ALREADY finished as I don't even GET any TV stations anymore except for a few low-power ones ;)

Second, I quit watching in 1998 when CBS and ABC joined the bug phenomenon and kept their logos on the screen during all their shows. THIS is costing them viewers and I don't know what they've gained in the 11 years since they've been doing it.

Keep crap off the screen and limit commercial time to 10 minutes per hour, and viewers might return. Keep doing what they're doing and they'll keep losing them.

Joe,
Is this type of article necessary? Don't you think folks who work in network TV are already skittish enough without you throwing another fear-log onto the fire? Peoples' careers and livlihoods are at stake, and for whatever reason, you feel the need to publicly profess the coming demise of network TV. Strange. And you comment on Twitter that "we won't want to see Part 2?" Are you going for sensationalistic shock-value? What is your end-game, here?

How about trying to be part of the solution, rather than most definitely adding to the problem? You think advertisers want to read this? Actors? Producers? Sometimes a prophecy can be self-fulfilling, just because a print article pushes it in that direction.

You've done a grave disservice to the entire television industry with this two-part piece of crap.

This article needs to rely less on anecdotes and more on hard facts and data.

When writing about TV execs saving money there are just unsubstantiated quotes from anonymous people about cutting back on lavish catering. Or fewer writers.

What's missing is some quantifiable facts. Did the writer check with studios to see if they are ordering less food. Or hiring fewer writers. Did the writer check with Hollywood writers?

Anonymous quotes should not be the basis of an article.

Wow, this is sensationalized tripe. For how many decades has many-a-pontiff espoused the end of TV? TV is resilient and adjustable. It has a large and committed audience. I've heard the hype about new business models but it's all talk. Soon, TV executives will get wise to the idea that a scripted series doesn't have to cost millions.If the executives don't get it the stockholders will, and insert fresh blood into the mix. TV will further integrate broadband media into its format and use advancement in technology to produce quality inexpensive TV. And who can show the networks how to do this? Independent filmmakers.

Content is king! Always has been.

Free TV can still deliver an audience in the tens of millions IF the programming is there. The business model is NOT dead. It's just that the leaders of the networks have been blowing it with panicked, focus-group driven decisions instead of letting the truly creative guys and gals make the calls.

Zucker, for example, has taken NBC to Number 4 in many markets because he's a bright number-cruncher who should not, repeat, not be making creative decisions ("Coupling" anyone?).

When TV, among other things, gets back to the business of creating stars, instead of stunt casting everything, it'll have a chance. You mentioned "CSI." It's one of the biggest TV franchises ever. Why? It snuck in under the radar. No one wanted it so the suits left it alone to die on Friday night. NO stars per se. NO big promotional push (at first). And voila! The biggest hit in twenty years.

Let the creatives create then all will be well!

If it so dead why does the most tech savvy President ever continue to use it like it's his personal tweeter account. Could be that it gives him the biggest bang for the buck?

No new episodes of "Lost?" What is the world coming to?!

The phrase is 'rein in costs' not 'reign in costs.' You're a writer, I'm surprised you didn't know that.

That's been happening for years now and the networks have been substituting lots of scripted fare with crappy reality shows. The number of scripted dramas hasn't decreased. Most of the ones worth watching are all on cable.