Cord cutters
With more viewers streaming content, the death of cable news is not far off.
Traditional television is taking its last breaths. According to the venerable Nielsen ratings firm, U.S. TV viewership dropped by 12% in January, compared to the same month a year earlier. That’s the eighth consecutive double-digit decline and certainly not the last.
At the same time, Canadian ratings agency Numeris reports that TV viewership of NHL games plummeted this year, as Canadians turned to new media platforms to follow their favourite teams. A survey from Solutions Research Group found that the percentage of Canadians watching the NHL on TV fell from 50% to 44% over the course of 2014, while those who followed the NHL on a digital, social or mobile platforms grew from 23% to 26%.
And while the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) recently voiced its support for “over the air” (OTA) — a.k.a. “free” — television, chairman Jean Pierre Blais conceded that, “The future of television lies more toward viewer-centric, ondemand models than the scheduled broadcasts such as those provided by OTA.” Streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and Apple TV are the future — making the CRTC itself a creature of the past.
Changing viewer behaviour has huge implications, not just for sitcoms and sports, but for politics, as well. As the next generation of viewers turns away from 24-hour news channels and toward streaming video, will they consume more entertainment and less information? Sure, you can stream some news channels over the Internet, and others of- fer clips of their various news programs, but if you’ve cut the cable, you’re likely not looking for live news. You’re downloading the latest episodes of
Downton Abbey, or catching up on past seasons of Breaking
Bad. My teenage stepdaughter is currently plowing through all 11 seasons of Grey’s Anat
omy, which first aired when she started Grade 2. (Talk about feeling old … but that’s another column entirely.)
On-demand programming also means the death of another TV habit that led viewers to political news: channel surfing. No longer will viewers pause the remote on that shocking story about a political scandal as it flashes on their screens. No more hopping back and forth between networks on election night, or during huge breaking news stories. If viewers do want news, more and more of them are turning to Twitter for the headlines, cherry-picking stories as they pop up on their feed. They can also turn to apps like CNNgo, or get video on the CP24 or CBC News Network websites. And for the hardcore politico, Question Period is streamed live on CPAC.ca. But if you’re not following these feeds, you can arguably live a more politicsfree life than ever before.
For politicians, the challenge thus becomes how to connect with voters who can more easily tune them out. Some have their own YouTube channels and produce their own shows. The Prime Minister’s online show, 24 Seven, the Canadian ripoff of White House Week, is a prime example of this: An Internet “series” about the latest goings-on in the Prime Minister’s world. It’s been online for a year now, with dismal ratings. In one of the better-viewed episodes, 10,000 tuned in to watch the Prime Minister’s wife, Laureen Harper, talk about her favourite colour and other important matters. But a recent episode from the middle of January, which features the Harpers attending their son’s volleyball tournament, among other things, has fewer than 2,000 views to date.
In addition to attracting very few eyeballs, this kind of feel-good propaganda adds nothing of value to the political discourse. It only fuels the cynicism many voters feel about the packaging of political messages. It dovetails with the plethora of “attack ads” that pepper the airwaves — but which also can be easily tuned out by cutting that cable cord. Networks may be mandated to carry political ads during election campaigns, but if viewers aren’t watching network TV, they won’t be watching those commercials, either.
It is highly ironic that in places where people desperately fight for freedom — such as Egypt, Hong Kong or Ukraine — new media provides a means of effecting, or at least trying to effect, political change. Conversely, in established democracies, it provides a means of escape from political reality. As more of us embrace the luxury of choice in our television viewing, we should make the conscious effort to tune in to political news. Like vitamins, we need a daily dose of that reality, to keep our politicians accountable and our democracy strong.