CT Programmer

Comeback Stocks

Nothing like some good old performance chasing. Did it take both of them to do the chart?

The End of Broadcast TV Nears

Good article, but I think your "big show" type of thinking won't go far anymore with TV, or any other media for that matter. I'm 40, and when we were kids there were basically 4 or 5 channels to watch. You still watched on days when, if you had been the program director, shows were on that you wouldn't necessarily put on. Sure, there were really good shows on. But if there had been adequate competition, would you really have watched one of the big three networks during prime time? How many half-hour shows had good ratings just because they were plugged in between the good half-hour show at 8pm and the good show at 9pm? "Good" content is relative. People say that there are 200 channels on cable and nothing to watch, but the reality is that out of those 200 channels they may be interested in about 10 of them, but someone else would pick 10 different channels. Media is now spread out amongst a vast array of programming that can't possibly hope to attract the huge audiences of the past because not everyone is interested in the same thing. Your Superbowl analogy is an anomaly. I wasn't one of those millions of viewers because I can't stand football. You put on nothing but football on TV and you're lost me entirely. What will save the big media companies is to continue to buy up the little channels, but keep the targeted programming. Look at how many cable channels NBC owns now. The ad revenues will be lower for any given channel, because the audience is smaller, but the scale of the entire multi-channel operation will provide the revenues.