“Let us focus our circulation down to deliver a more qualified audience. Let us cut the paper stock to save money. Let us cut the newsroom to save margin. Let us slow roll into new media as we don’t want to cannibalize our own business”…and on and on and on…
This article - to me - is the first official bad sign that network TV is the next old media to undergo a long term cycle to oblivion. The discussion isn’t about product or customers; just about costs, margins and OIBDA.
When you can’t grow, you focus on expenses and the cycle of cuts; layoffs; cheapening of the product; and all sort of self-fulfilling rationale begins. I once thought of NBC television under Brandon Tartikoff as a creative powerhouse. Now it is all about suits and numbers and cheap content to fill in the time slots. Color me nervous for network TV.
