The American mainstream media has been on a collision course with reality for several years. It appears the day of reckoning has arrived as both ABC News and CBS News make announcements today that indicate deep financial woes. In short, the mainstream media is going down as the big news giants begin to implode.
(AP Photo/ABC, Ida Mae Astute)
For quite some time now it has been widely known that NBC News and its sister networks MSNBC and CNBC are in dire financial straits. That news was confirmed with the sale of the entity a few months ago.
In addition, CBS News is reportedly talking with CNN's Anderson Cooper concerning an anchor position with the network. CBS has already been forced to cut Katie Couric's salary, and Couric's contract is set to expire in a little over a year.
The crash of big mainstream media is not confined to television, however. Liberal, mainstream newspapers, such as the New York Times, continue to operate under heavy financial pressure as subscriptions tank and advertising revenues fall to historic lows.
Liberal talk radio has never been able to get off the ground due to the lack of listener support and the inability to sell advertising.
The woes of liberal media are juxtaposed with a boom in conservative oriented news organizations, however. Since the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency the ratings of Fox News have skyrocketed. During the same period the ratings of CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC have plummeted.
Bill O'Reilly's ratings are higher than all of the top programs on CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC combined. And when the big three at Fox--O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity--are counted together, the network rivals the combination of the 3 network news broadcasts at CBS, NBC, and ABC--an unprecedented coup for a cable news network.
And on radio Rush Limbaugh remains king of the road. Each time Obama and company took to the airwaves to bash Rush, the talk radio giant only managed to increase his audience.
All indications point to a continuation of the decline of the liberal, mainstream media as conservative and alternative news sources enjoy their best days in history.
For commentary on the issues of the day, visit my blog at The Liberty Sphere.
Comments
This is the free market at work. A turd salesman will fail, even with frosting and those little colorful sprinkles. I suppose I should feel sorry for them...NOT! To paraphrase a classic quote from Soviet Russion: They pretend to tell us the truth, and we pretend to listen.
This is the consumers democracy in action. I am glad the leftists in government..I mean Hollywood...I mean the media, will get what they deserve. (and I do not mean a bailout). They are so biased it makes me sick to my stomach. And I say that as a true liberal, not a modern socialist/fascist/progressive "liberal". They hijacked the word and its time they call themselves what they truly are, socialist/fascist/progressive? take your pick, they are equally evil anti economic liberals.
The Washington Post would also be fertilizer without Kaplan Education--which has raked in millions from Obama's massive education spending. In better times that would be called conflict of interest--especially when the WAPO editorialists led the cry for massive education spending. Of course the GE/NBC/MSNBC model sunk journalism to all-time lows.
*Good*. They deserve to fail. (Except for Kudlow).
Good, They are 90% of the problem - I hope the go soon - Fox is where the real truth is!
Just have to love it when a plan works out. As in Free Market capitalism...
"Liberal talk radio has never been able to get off the ground due to the lack of listener support and the inability to sell advertising."
Limbaugh- 14.25 Million listeners a week.
NPR's All Things Considered- 13.5 Million listeners a week.
Bill O'Reilly- About 4 million watches a night.
Brian Williams- 9.4 million.
Now you can say that the mainstream media is controled by liberals, or you can say that conservatives have dominated over liberal media, but it seems to me that you can't say both, because if NPR is liberal it's very close to matching conservative radio, and if NBC is a liberal news sites it's dominating Fox.
Now I think both tilt significantly left without being actively propagandist about it the way that Fox News and Limbaugh are. Liberal media, when it's successful, still strives to at least appear bipartisan, an effort which the right seems to have long-since abandoned. Even Colmes is gone.
But don't let a little thing like reality get in the way of your
now if all this is true and American are waking up to the truth of convervative thought and values, then let's vote these left-wing wackos out of office.
Fox is losing too don't let them kid you. We the people want real news not propaganda and pop culture fluf pieces about Tiger woods and other meaningless things and people that don't effect our lives in any way. There are 2 unnecessary wars with over 1 million dead Iraq people state sponsored torture and illegal wiretapping e-mail snooping need I go on! I say that they better start telling the truth or go bankrupt!!!!
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