The news that dropped yesterday afternoon on several media and even a couple of general business sites was neither surprising nor unexpected. But it still was a sobering reminder of the passage of time and more than a little personally upsetting when I read what the LOS ANGELES TIMES’ Stephen Battaglio reported:
The media business has gotten so tough that one of its longest-running chroniclers is going away.
Broadcasting + Cable, founded in 1931 as Broadcasting, will print its final issue in September. Parent company Future also is closing Multichannel News, a publication focused on the pay TV business that has existed since 1980. Newsletters put out by both outlets also will cease publication.
NEWSCAST STUDIO’s coverage added a few more details of why this occurred:
Trade publications such as B&C and Multichannel News were traditionally mailed to thousands of industry professionals for free. Publishers made money by selling advertising, but trade publications from most industries have been facing challenges selling print ads.
Future, the parent of the two brands, said that both publications will stop print publication and also no longer publish separate digital newsletter products. The company’s NextTV brand will also stop publishing newsletters.
Instead, the company will launch a digital newsletter focused on media and entertainment on Oct. 1, 2024, under its existing SmartBrief name. The NextTV website will be “reformatted.” An unspecified number of employees are being laid off, according to The Desk.
These days, when it comes to career paths, all we tend to see are announcements of mass layoffs with no names or details provided save for the most senior and highest-compensated of those affected, because, after all, the purpose of such publicity these days is to demonstrate to investors the fiscal accountability that drives virtually all decisions in media these days. But when BROADCASTING magazine was the de facto publication of record, even mid-level and sometimes entry level hires were announced in the “Fates and Fortunes” section with a summative paragraph and sometimes even a picture of the truly photogenic. I got in that section several times and often an issue wouldn’t go by where I didn’t recognize someone who got the same treatment.
The print editions of these publications would arrive like clockwork with the Monday morning mail, often jam-packed with trade ads extolling clearances or heavily qualified ratings success stories, many of which I personally created. It was recommended that you stop whatever you were doing to pore through the issues, both to learn about what was happening in the rest of the industry but also to proof for typos. I spent a lot of time going through these glossy trades with an eagle eye and on more than a few occasions would reach out to the editors or account executives for what they would contend were honest errors.
I also got quoted a lot, and if you’re patient and curious enough to click through a dozen or so pages on a Google search you may even find a few 0n archive sites which I pray will continue to exist. I found this one where I made it to TOP OF THE WEEK on the heels of the first big convention of 1989 where a bunch of aspiring Nostradamuses were allowed to pontificate on what might make it to air:
Steve Leblang, vice president of programing at the Fox station group, said that stations need ”unique program opportunities—things that will set stations apart from the collective competition of cable and givc viewers a reason not to go out and rent a videocassette.” With a few exceptions, said Leblang, those needs are not being met by the current program marketplace.
But Leblang said stations, to some extent, can help themselves by packaging their programing in a unique way. “If the product is not unique,” he said, ‘*then certainly the environment in which it is presented has to be unique, and promoted extensively and creatively.” And if the market is not providing unique programing, Leblang said, stations may, if they can afford it, take the initiative and produce it themselves. Indeed, that appears to be a growing trend these days.
And just to prove I wasn’t a one-hit or one-decade wonder, I also managed to find a lengthy piece by MULTICHANNEL NEWS’ Linda Moss on the growth of late night for cable networks in 2003 where I had a lot to say, just not necessarily anything good about my employer:
MTV: Music Television and FX are savvy programmers that have successfully launched big primetime hits. MTV’s The Osbournes became a pop-culture phenomenon, while FX’s The Shield and Nip/Tuck appealed to audiences and TV critics alike. But the two networks recently stumbled with their original forays in late night. Within a week of each other last month, MTV and FX announced that they were pulling the plug on The New Tom Green Show and The Orlando Jones Show, respectively. Both doomed programs, hip talk shows, had debuted in June.
FX has a good share of young male viewers — one reason why it stripped Orlando Jones at 11 p.m. The show debuted with pretty solid numbers, but couldn’t sustain them. Lately, it was averaging a 0.3 rating. FX defended the show and Jones’s work as good, but said the program was costly to produce and was just not getting adequate numbers.
“It is the most disloyal daypart there is,” said Steve Leblang, senior vice president of strategic planning and research for FX Networks. He was referring to the “restless” viewers who tune in to television after 11 p.m.
But I did manage to heap praise on the show we were all hoping to knock off, one that actually is still around at least for now:
Leblang gives Comedy Central credit for having the patience to let The Daily Showat 11 p.m. build over time, growing to become one of cable’s biggest success stories in late night. He pointed out that The Daily Show (originally hosted by Craig Kilborn) debuted in 1996 with a 0.3 rating, and now seven years later averages a 0.7 or 0.8, according to Nielsen. (Stewart took over in 1999.)
I suppose in hindsight I sounded smart and prescient. I’d like to think I still am. I do fully realize that in an era where something like this musing can be uploaded on a moment’s notice and off a restless night’s lack of sleep the need for pulpits like B&C and MULTICHANNEL no longer exist. As another oft-quoted friend of mine lamented when we shared our sorrow about their impending demise, “free isn’t a very good business model these days”. Don’t I know that.
To those of you who are fortunate enough to still have your career paths mostly ahead of you, a lot of this will simply sail over your heads. Even though a lot of this may sound like a “get off my lawn” rant, I don’t have one of my own any more to shoo you off of. But I once had a pretty impressive one, at roughly the same time when these publications thrived and mattered. And the fact that they’re just two more victims of the inexorable passage of time and “progress” has got my stomach a bit more queasy than usual.
Even the fact that FUTURE, the British conglomerate that controlled these legacy brands isn’t entirely retiring the name carried a bit of backhanded ageism in this pronouncement that Battaglio–himself a veteran of such other publications barely clinging to life like TV GUIDE–tossed out:
Future said it will continue to stage the Broadcasting + Cable Hall of Fame dinner, which provided a substantial portion of the publisher’s revenue. The annual New York event honoring executives and talent in the TV business is held in September.
Sure, if you’re old and “seasoned” enough to remember waiting for the Monday morning mail drop, that dinner and accolade with that name on it will matter. It mattered to my fellow Oswegonian when he got inducted, and I know a few more folks I’ve known and once considered friends still have their moment of glory awaiting. But I suspect once the generation that can appreciate what B&C and MN once meant have gotten their laurels, FUTURE, or whomever replaces it, will find a cost-cutting reason to shut that down as well.
To those of you that plead obliviousness to all of this– heck, you (and, for that matter, I) still have LinkedIn to supply our own version of newsbreaking and even get some real-time reactions to it. That’s pretty much what something like FATES AND FORTUNES is these days.
I guess I’ll see you all there down the road.
Until next time…