Main Stream Media

So, Which is the “Main Stream Media” We Hear So Much About?

The first broadcast of a morning news show was January 14, 1952. It was the Today Show with host-creator Dave Garroway, who believed television could find an audience for news at 6 AM. Only nine at the time, I probably remember watching for two reasons: TV was new to us and I was fascinated there was somebody on TV named David. Also, my father was an admirer of Garroway, and I was an admirer of by father. Some years later (I forget exactly) the Today Show did a survey and found the average viewer only watched for about 15 minutes, and programming adjusted accordingly.

In 1956 NBC was alone in the TV market when starting its first half-hour national news show. At the time there was some question as to whether there actually was enough news to fill that much time. CBS, then the only other TV network, was still doing a half-hour evening newscast. To be sure they could fill the time the broadcast featured two anchors, Chet Huntley in New York and David Brinkley from D.C. Soon this half-hour approach was copied by CBS with one anchor in New York. Walter Cronkite. ABC came much later. Apparently by evenings there was enough news to keep audience attention for a half-hour.

The world and market changed. Today we have our pick of three Broadcast Network news, each has their own 2-hour morning “show”. They also have half-hour evening news with 60 seconds for each story chosen for importance out of thousands of credible, conformable thousands which come across the Internet every hour (which have to be sorted out from the pure baloney).

There are also now three Cable News choices. And, yes, there is something called Bloomberg Business News, but we don’t get it. With those I do get my experience has been that left on mute, if it is actually important, they all carry about the same stories. Sorting them out, of course, according to their own criteria. Mostly I look for anchors seen on real TV for years, or ones I just like (reminding me of my daughter helps).

On June 1, 1980, Ted Turner launched CNN, the first 24-hour cable news operation. The business model was to contract with local stations, giving CNN the world’s first instant nationwide coverage. Being solely dedicated to news, it became the reliable source for news on cable TV.

Since its sale by Ted Turner in 1996 to news-neutral AT&T, CNN has lost ground. It has suffered from both loss of local contracts due to rise of FOX and MSNBC, and the general diffusion of available advertising revenue due to rise of Internet. Also, viewers may have been lost over last few years because of CNN factually reporting what trump says and does, which may make CNN seem progressive.

In 1996 Australian media mogul Rufford Murdock established FOX News. FOX has a publicly stated business model of promoting “conservative” schema; using “news” as a baseline for such advancement. According to public information and former employees, under Roger Ailes and the Murdock family the news became subordinate to the schema. As Murdock does in England and Australia, programming is targeted at an audience which only wants that side of the story. It is this audience and business model which FOX presents to prospective advertisers.

MSNBC also began in 1996 as a partnership with Microsoft, to whom the network provides a news feed. It floundered at first in finding an audience, attempting to compete with FOX. It finally found a niche market in a “progressive” viewership, while retaining some of its original conservative journalist. This was a marketing and financial decision, and subsequent programming resulted.

Thus, we end up with EVERY news station having to assume they only have limited time, will have new audience every half-hour, and have to pick out the stories which will retain their audience’s attention and produce the ratings needed to make the only thing that counts: PROFIT.

So, which is the “main stream media” we hear so much about?