What keeps the major networks the major networks?

According to this author from Business Insider, its the major advertisers and a process in place that gives them a special role in how ad dollars are spent:

Right now, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and some of the major cable channels, are holding their "upfront" buying events in Midtown New York. They do this every year: The networks put on crazy shows, featuring their big stars, trying to build as much buzz as possible.

The shows are for ad-buyers, not the public. Last year, Jimmy Kimmel did a set for ABC in which he mocked the NBC show "Animal Practice," which featured a monkey. "This is the first time that NBC has had a star that throws its own feces since Gary Busey on 'Celebrity Apprentice,'" he said. Then he added, "We know that you have 9 billion to spend this week, so don't get all cheap-o, Secret Service on us" (a reference to the scandal in which a presidential security officer short-changed a prostitute).

Once the shows are over, the buyers and the networks literally enter a secret room, or at least a room that no one else is allowed into, and do their deals. About $10 billion will get spent this month. Ad Age describes it this way:

This is the time of year when the most powerful ad execs in the nation stand in line — line! — to get into Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to hear the pitch, see the clips and laugh along with the stars.

… after these big parties are over, possibly as few as 40 people from the networks, agencies and brands will go into backrooms and decide how $9 billion of the $62 billion U.S. TV ad market will be spent next year.

This is madness. No other billion-dollar commodity exchanges hands with this lack of transparency.

The Kennedy Assassination and the Rise of Television

One of the points made last week when the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination was observed was that the event marked the rise of television as a major source of information for the public, and a unique one at that.

One of the items we are looking at this week in 2305 is the media, and I like discussing the impact of technology on how the media impacts the world of government and politics.

Here's one commentator's take, he notes that most people above the age of 4 or 5 remembers where they were that day:

Each of them, I can assure you, remembers precisely what they were doing 50 years ago, and I can further assure you that a common denominator of their day was that television set.

Remember that in 1963, television was still a relatively young medium — just about 13 years old, not counting the late 40s, when schedules and networks were still in an embryonic state. TV was still a novelty, color TV an exotic luxury — true color along with shows in color would not arrive until the middle of the decade.

People watched everything on their sets in shades of gray — that was the reality of TV, as presented day after day . . . And then, this incredible moment in Dallas, in black and white, but as real, as solid, as the hand you hold in front of your face . . .

TV news by '63 was no longer subsidiary to radio — that transition had happened, at least resoundingly, by '59-60, with coverage of the political conventions — but its role remained amorphous — a young industry in search of a mission. I lay some of this out in a story in today's paper, but it can't begin to capture the role television news suddenly stumbled upon that day — partly because television itself was surprised .

I spoke with Roger Mudd the other day — Roger, then a young CBS News correspondent in Washington — who remembers coming home later that night."My wife was at home watching television and she was crying and our 5 year old son Daniel came into the room where she was and saw his mother crying, so he turned the television off. So here's this young fellow, 5 years old, not knowing why his mother was crying but all he knew was that the television was to blame."

That linkage — of grief, loss, horror, mourning, catharsis and all in real-time, and all on TV — wasn't merely novel but revolutionary. Suddenly TV was no longer a "utility" — a toaster with pictures — but an elemental part of our emotional life: Our most secret hopes and fears and desires, all bound up with the hopes and desires and fears of 200 million other people.

TV News Trust Poll

From Public Policy Polling:

PPP's annual look at the public's trust in various TV news outlets finds that Fox News' credibility is on the decline, that the traditional networks are seeing an up tick in their numbers, and that PBS is at the top of the heap.

Here's how they stack up from highest net trust to worst:


Outlet - Trust/Distrust

PBS - 50/30
NBC - 41/41
CNN - 40/43
Fox News - 42/46
CBS - 36/43
ABC - 35/43

Republican Shows / Democratic Shows

The range of entertainment options made available to the general public has seemingly led to another factor which maker party identifiers different: the shows each watches:

New Link: The Living Room Candidate

I added a new link in the "Elections" section. The Living Room Candidate has comprehensive collection of all of the campaign commercials run by the major party nominees for the general election. It also includes ads run for the candidates by outsider groups--like the Swift Boat Veterans ad that was not officially affiliated with the Bush campaign.

We'll run through these in 2301 when we cover campaigns, but we'll sneak a peak here and there.