Invasion Coverage

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PGage

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Feb 27, 2022, 4:47:07 PM2/27/22
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I am wondering how the list thinks TV News has been covering the Invasion, and if any outlets have shown themselves to be particularly strong or weak.

I have been following on TV mostly with CNN and BBC, with some MSNBC and ABC. Online I have been using Twitter, which has a lot more information, but a higher ratio of it is unreliable.

It seems to me CNN still rules when it comes to stories like this (and I almost never watch them for regular news). I suppose their foreign bureaus are not as well staffed as the past, but it seems they still have more people on the ground than the other outlets. I still mostly switch them off when it comes to panels. 

MSNBC has Richard Engles, who is great, but they seem to mostly be repeating reportage from others. I do still like their approach to panels - gathering print journalists to discuss their work, though that is less valuable on an actual breaking story 5000 miles away.

The BBC (it seems like we are getting their world feed or whatever they call it via BBCA) is lower key, but also seems to have boots on the ground. It’s harder for me to tell what is live and what is delayed, which is irritating.

What would happen if there were no more “linear” television outlets on stories like these? I read the papers often during the day, and the AP, and Twitter, but there would be a huge hole without television news organizations with ongoing assets in the field. Will Amazon or Hulu be doing that down the road? I guess I will have to get CNN+
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Adam Bowie

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Feb 27, 2022, 8:40:26 PM2/27/22
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Well I may be biased because I work for them, but it's almost entirely the BBC for me. 

The international TV news channel is BBC World News. Are they simulcasting that on BBC America? I know BBC World News doesn't have the same footprint as other news channels on US cable packages. But then I know that BBC America just launched their big finale season of Killing Eve this evening, so I suspect that they're not doing news all the time. Anyway, BBC World News and the domestic BBC News Channel are probably simulcasting to a large extent right now, which they tend to do in times of crisis. Both are 24 hour services. While the anchors are live around the clock on that channel, reports in US primetime probably won't be live because of the time difference. 

The main 6pm and 10pm UK BBC news bulletins have been live from Kyiv for the last couple of days with Clive Myrie anchoring from there. I'm not sure how long they'll be able to continue that. In tonight's bulletin, they referenced a big explosion close by while they were on the air (it happened during a pre-recorded report). ]]

The BBC has multiple people on the ground spread across the country as well as in nearby countries. There are also reporters covering it for radio. It's also worth knowing that BBC World Service has a Ukrainian service with local journalists permanently in place in Ukraine. The service's editor has written about leaving the capital to protect her family: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60525725

I don't know how many staff the BBC has in total in the country, and I suspect that for security reasons they wouldn't say, but it's a substantial presence when you factor everyone in.

Otherwise, ITV News and Sky News also both have significant numbers of journalists in the country. Sky journalists may be showing up in NBC coverage. 


Adam

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PGage

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Feb 27, 2022, 8:53:40 PM2/27/22
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I have seen the “World News” banner much (if not all of the time), and it does not feel like it is being targeted for American consumption, so I assume it is what most of the world gets. BBCA is not all Ukraine 24/7 (just now they have an hour show on about cinema, focused on Berlin Film Festival). MSNBC, at least when I checked late last night/early this am, made what much have been a tough decision for them to preempt their true crime shows for live coverage.

Kevin M.

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Feb 27, 2022, 8:54:59 PM2/27/22
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On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 1:47 PM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote
. 
.

What would happen if there were no more “linear” television outlets on stories like these? I read the papers often during the day, and the AP, and Twitter, but there would be a huge hole without television news organizations with ongoing assets in the field. Will Amazon or Hulu be doing that down the road? I guess I will have to get CNN+

Really? A huge hole? What context are TV news providing? What, other than the instantaneous visuals of explosions, are they contributing to the story? I’m unaware of any experts on Ukraine employed by CNN or MSNBC… they might exist, but I can’t imagine they prepared for this eventuality, even though Putin has been preparing for this for more than a decade so they had plenty of time to develop sources and establish solid connections to the region. 

I haven’t watched any TV coverage, and I don’t feel I’m missing out. I have friends in the area, so I can see any immediate events on social media. For context there are stories from AP and BBC. Both NPR and MarketPlace have done a decent job explaining the impact of war in the region on US economy and life. I fail to see any advantage in whatever CNN or MSNBC might be bloviating about. 

I’m taking this war personally. I was in Kazakhstan 20 years ago when Putin murdered a school full of men, women, and children in Beslan. And I watched when he attacked Crimea. And Georgia. He’s patient and methodical, and the so called international community has let him get away with this crap over and over again. The US isn’t a moral leader anymore, and we’re on the cusp of ceasing to be a superpower, but we could still be acting against Putin with more than economic sanctions. As could a dozen other nations. 

Putin won’t stop until he’s forcibly removed from office or assassinated. That’s the reality. Even if he’s convinced to stop attacking Ukraine, he will shift targets or wait until we are distracted and strike again. The TV news media is too dumbed down and too political to cover this situation with any degree of quality or depth.  



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PGage

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Feb 27, 2022, 9:04:48 PM2/27/22
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While there is something to your critique, I think it is overly harsh. I have seen several recognized experts on both Russia and Ukraine interviewed many times, providing both general context but also targeted context and analysis if minute by minute events. They have interviewed Ukrainians getting out, and those staying. They have video, and interviews, with officials from surrounding nations, NATO, and the EU. Yes, I have seen much of this online as well, but television news has, during my lifetime, been an import supplement to print journalism, and institutional, legacy media are an essential counterweight to much of the freelance reporting one sees on Social Media, which has less concern with its reputation and credibility. 

I’m not saying we would be blind without linear television news, but there would be a hole.

Kevin M.

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Feb 27, 2022, 9:10:38 PM2/27/22
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You make my point for me. Experts are now available online without a network filter. Survivor and victim accounts are also available.  If I’m going to try to stomach Don Lemon or Rachel Maddow, they need to offer something I can’t get elsewhere.

Like you, I’ve turned to TV during Breaking News throughout my life, too. But now I not only don’t miss it, but feel I’m better informed by virtue of not watching it.

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PGage

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Feb 27, 2022, 9:25:05 PM2/27/22
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If it helps, I have not seen Don Lemon or Rachel Maddow once since the invasion started.

Kevin M.

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Feb 27, 2022, 9:30:21 PM2/27/22
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On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 6:25 PM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:
If it helps, I have not seen Don Lemon or Rachel Maddow once since the invasion started.

I’m sure that helps you 

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

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Feb 27, 2022, 9:31:55 PM2/27/22
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I’m with Kevin on the state of US TV news. If I think about how the news stations are going to cover the invasion I know they are going to talk about how it’s going to affect the upcoming US elections. I lived in Israel for years and I remember cable TV came with CNN International. If something big happened locally and I turned on CNN to see their coverage, it was about how the event would affect Americans or US foreign policy.

I followed the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions closely in both the newspapers and on TV. From day to day there wasn’t a whole lot new to cover and in retrospect they missed the story in a big way. I don’t trust them to get this story right.

On Feb 27, 2022, at 9:10 PM, Kevin M. <drunkba...@gmail.com> wrote:



PGage

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Feb 28, 2022, 12:24:14 AM2/28/22
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So, I am uncomfortable in the role of defending TV news, as I agree with the sorry state it is in. I have not been watching cable news continuously since the invasion, but every 3-4 hours I watch for about 30 min. I have not seen even one minute of discussion of how it will effect midterm or presidential elections, or even Biden’s poll numbers. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have had segments like this, but not often enough that my sampling has hit it. The closest I have seen is a segment on Trump at CPAC, and his comments on Putin and Biden.

In the early days the story was about the resolve of the Ukrainian people, and of their President. I thought TV News got this right, got it right early, and before it was conventional wisdom. Another story they have covered well is the refugees, and how they have been helped at all of the European borders. The last couple of days a key story has been how the EU countries have changed what appeared to be deeply entrenched positions on limiting sanctions on Russia and military aid to Ukraine. TV News has done a good job of reporting the outcomes, but newspapers have done the real work of reporting the process, see for example great WaPo story on  how Zelensky personally convinced the German Chancellor to change his mind in a video call to the EU meeting from the front lines:


Where I think TV has surprisingly not done a very good job is actually tracking the real time progress of the various Russian lines of advance. All three of the outlets I have been monitoring seem to mostly have reporters in fixed positions observing street intersections or buildings. They get excited when they get audio of missals  hitting, or air raid alarms, or fires, but otherwise they mostly say things like “reports are that the Russians are moving up from XXX”, or “the Russian advance is slower than expected”, or “The Capital is still under the control of Ukrainians”.

Online you can find more specific reports (locals destroying bridges, heated battles at specific locations), but this is where you also get a lot of conflicting reports.

I suspect both traditional and non traditional reports are getting carried away with the romanticism of David standing up to Goliath, and creating an expectation that somehow Ukraine is going to win this war in some kind of movie ending. Sadly that still seems unlikely.


Adam Bowie

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Feb 28, 2022, 5:48:57 AM2/28/22
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Obviously opinions vary considerably on what we want from news, and the TV news options I get here are different to most of this group's.

Pgage wrote:

"What would happen if there were no more “linear” television outlets on stories like these? I read the papers often during the day, and the AP, and Twitter, but there would be a huge hole without television news organizations with ongoing assets in the field. Will Amazon or Hulu be doing that down the road? I guess I will have to get CNN+"

My feeling is that linear news channels will continue as we move to streaming, just as we are already beginning to watch live streams of sports. CNN+ is an oddity because it's clearly an interim service that Warner-Discovery (or whatever they're called today) has to have separate to the main channel because of those lucrative cable revenues. But at some point down the line, normal CNN (and the likes of regular ESPN) will become a streaming option and it'll be where we go to if we want live up-to-the-minute news coverage. See also BBC World News, Sky News, Euronews, Al Jazeera and whatever else. 

twolper wrote:

"If I think about how the news stations are going to cover the invasion I know they are going to talk about how it’s going to affect the upcoming US elections. I lived in Israel for years and I remember cable TV came with CNN International. If something big happened locally and I turned on CNN to see their coverage, it was about how the event would affect Americans or US foreign policy."

To be fair, I don't think CNN is alone in this. Watching the domestic BBC News, there are reports about what this will mean for British households. Fuel price increases in the main - and we're already facing some massive spikes in those ahead of this conflict. But that's a real concern, and you do need to explain to audiences why a dispute that is happening many thousands of miles away from your shores is going to impact you. Obviously, you wouldn't probably shouldn't lead on this with your global facing services. But then even CNN International simulcasts a lot of regular CNN. The big primetime shows all go out in Europe's late night timeslots. And during massive conflicts, CNN, like the BBC, merge their domestic and global services into a single stream. 

If I ignore those primetime shows, which are definitely from a US-angle, I don't think CNN International is too US-skewed. I get more irked to be honest when I've watched ABC's "World" News Tonight and realised that "World" has a very different meaning in that context :-)

Kevin wrote:

"Experts are now available online without a network filter. Survivor and victim accounts are also available."

To be honest, I do want, and need a filter. There are some amazing experts online, but there are also lots of people with specific issues/grievances/angles, and it can be hard to determine which reports I should trust. I find I'm regularly clicking through to people's Twitter profiles and seeing if they look like they might know something based on that. Do they have a verified tick? Are they working for some organisation that has some credibility? It's really hard. This person may be the best expert on Ukraine/Russian diplomatic relations in the world, but I need someone to help me determine that. There are plenty of people just blindly retweeting other things, and while I "vet" who I follow fairly closely to get rid of people who retweet or share nonsense, that takes time and effort. It's not that dissimilar to trying to work out  whether someone really knows about Covid or whether they're just an armchair-immunologist. (I should note that there absolutely cases where armchair experts have become real experts. I'm thinking of organisations like Bellingcat who have used open source material from social media, Google maps and so on to break real stories. They're doing some good work proving fabrications and "false flag" stories that are being planted currently. Many of the folks there started out as complete amateurs. So it is possible. It's just that it's hard for me to make that determination.)

Given we live in a world where people are completely happy to believe something they read from someone's friend of a friend on Facebook, but not believe something they saw on network television, I'm not sure that most of the population are as discriminating or media savvy as they need to be.

Pgate wrote: 

"I suspect both traditional and non traditional reports are getting carried away with the romanticism of David standing up to Goliath, and creating an expectation that somehow Ukraine is going to win this war in some kind of movie ending. Sadly that still seems unlikely."

While there's a bit of this, most of the commentators I've seen have been darkly warning that worse is yet to come. Ukrainian leaders may be making online videos to show how to make Molotov cocktails, but I don't think anyone really thinks that they'll be much use in the longer term against the might of Russian weaponry. 



Adam


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PGage

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Feb 28, 2022, 9:55:45 AM2/28/22
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Early this morning CNN’s Matthew Chance did get out and about, and had a riveting video report on the aftermath for a Russian column that had been repulsed from an advance on the Capital over a bridge. He showed tanks and trucks and armored vehicles completely destroyed (by those American Javelins Trump tried to use to extort fake dirt on the Bidens 3 years ago?). He alluded to dead Russian bodies he did not want to show, then (inadvertently I am prepared to believe) did come up on a dead Russian that was shown briefly, and now I have seen the piece rerun at least once, so I guess that did not violate CNN policy too much. The piece also showed him crouching down, then realizing he was inches from an unexploded grenade and moving away with deliberate speed.

It was pretty valid news, and very good TV. I’m sure CNN will repeat it if ten throughout today.

I admit to not having a good understanding of what a streaming-dominant television world will look like. I am not sure how linear news divisions could be maintained without a critical sized audience. aBC can always have talking heads and broadcast video it gets from others, but whatever vestige remains of an actual news gathering operation could not be maintained if it only had sizable numbers of viewers during intermediate crises. Maybe streaming networks will be able to support real news divisions in the future, but my experience with Netflix like operations has not included many live programs. Lives sporting events is the exception, but those are set pieces, relatively passive. Will a day come when one of the options on Amazon or Netflix or Disney is a live Newscast?

Adam’s point about the need for a “filter” is precisely what I have been trying to say. I too have spent a lot of time clicking on Twitter IDs  and then trying to research the credibility of the source. Consumers of News should not have to function as producers and editors and fact checkers. It reminds me of my experience at work, with patients coming in having diagnosed themselves and created their own treatment plans from cursory Google searches. If my use of the internet to get information about breaking news events is as accurate as what my patients bring to me about their own mental health, we are in big trouble. Plus, I find that the more a conclusion is the result of one’s own internet searching, the more stubborn one is to hang on to them, even in the face of contradictory expert judgement. Indeed, the whole culture and spirit of the Internet seems to be aimed at freeing people from the tyranny if “experts” - aka people who know what the hell they are talking about. We have seen the harvest if this approach in Vaccine denial.

Kevin M.

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Feb 28, 2022, 10:07:35 AM2/28/22
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On Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 6:55 AM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:
Early this morning CNN’s Matthew Chance did get out and about, and had a riveting video report on the aftermath for a Russian column that had been repulsed from an advance on the Capital over a bridge. He showed tanks and trucks and armored vehicles completely destroyed (by those American Javelins Trump tried to use to extort fake dirt on the Bidens 3 years ago?). He alluded to dead Russian bodies he did not want to show, then (inadvertently I am prepared to believe) did come up on a dead Russian that was shown briefly, and now I have seen the piece rerun at least once, so I guess that did not violate CNN policy too much. The piece also showed him crouching down, then realizing he was inches from an unexploded grenade and moving away with deliberate speed.

It was pretty valid news, and very good TV. I’m sure CNN will repeat it if ten throughout today.

I admit to not having a good understanding of what a streaming-dominant television world will look like. I am not sure how linear news divisions could be maintained without a critical sized audience. aBC can always have talking heads and broadcast video it gets from others, but whatever vestige remains of an actual news gathering operation could not be maintained if it only had sizable numbers of viewers during intermediate crises. Maybe streaming networks will be able to support real news divisions in the future, but my experience with Netflix like operations has not included many live programs. Lives sporting events is the exception, but those are set pieces, relatively passive. Will a day come when one of the options on Amazon or Netflix or Disney is a live Newscast?

Adam’s point about the need for a “filter” is precisely what I have been trying to say. I too have spent a lot of time clicking on Twitter IDs  and then trying to research the credibility of the source. Consumers of News should not have to function as producers and editors and fact checkers. It reminds me of my experience at work, with patients coming in having diagnosed themselves and created their own treatment plans from cursory Google searches. If my use of the internet to get information about breaking news events is as accurate as what my patients bring to me about their own mental health, we are in big trouble. Plus, I find that the more a conclusion is the result of one’s own internet searching, the more stubborn one is to hang on to them, even in the face of contradictory expert judgement. Indeed, the whole culture and spirit of the Internet seems to be aimed at freeing people from the tyranny if “experts” - aka people who know what the hell they are talking about. We have seen the harvest if this approach in Vaccine denial.

The vaccine coverage illustrates why counting on a network to filter your information doesn’t work anymore. Yes, it’s more convenient, but when the filters available are deeply flawed, viewers ultimately have to do it themselves  anyway. And let’s be honest, the anti-vax people aren’t interested in even basic research; they are merely seeking those whose opinions align with their baseless beliefs. 

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Adam Bowie

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Feb 28, 2022, 11:33:41 AM2/28/22
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PGage wrote:

"I admit to not having a good understanding of what a streaming-dominant television world will look like. I am not sure how linear news divisions could be maintained without a critical sized audience. aBC can always have talking heads and broadcast video it gets from others, but whatever vestige remains of an actual news gathering operation could not be maintained if it only had sizable numbers of viewers during intermediate crises. Maybe streaming networks will be able to support real news divisions in the future, but my experience with Netflix like operations has not included many live programs. Lives sporting events is the exception, but those are set pieces, relatively passive. Will a day come when one of the options on Amazon or Netflix or Disney is a live Newscast?"

This is an interesting question. Currently channels like CNN and Fox News are profitable because they create appointment to view programming in primetime that can be sold to advertisers, but also those cable bundle revenues. As the cable audience declines and everyone moves to streaming, at some point that becomes a significant challenge. 

I do think that at some point bundles will be become bigger and slightly less fluid than they are now. It's really not in, say, Disney's interest that I can subscribe for a month, binge the latest series and then cancel. If that churn becomes a major problem, then I can see it becoming more like traditional cable contracts where you have to subscribe for a year or more, and can't cancel at a moment's notice. On the other hand, it's entirely likely that Disney will eventually push you to a Disney/Hulu/ESPN combo, just as Warner-Discovery push you to an HBO Max/Discovery+/CNN combo. 

The question is whether everyone will do news, and what we've seen in recent years is that with a few exceptions, news isn't all that profitable. Local news outlets have gone, and even the local TV news operations which are perhaps profitable right now, rely on network TV to maintain their position. When those viewers go, where does leave those who can't pay or at least subsidise local news? Big regional US papers seem to be in the hands of asset-stripping hedge funds who probably aren't looking more than a handful of years forward. And then there are a few who are in much better positions and are cleaning up. The New York Times busily growing a powerful subs business, and the Washington Post having a benign billionaire owning it (benign in that I don't believe he interferes editorially). Globally, beyond CNN and some specialist financial news players like Bloomberg and CNBC, you have state funded outlets. The BBC is paid for directly via UK licence fees by citizens (although some of it is ad-supported). See also Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera and many others.  There are agencies like Reuters and AP, but they require subscribing services to stay afloat.

Lack of news means a challenge to democracy. If you don't know what's happening then anything could be happening. 

Kevin wrote:

"The vaccine coverage illustrates why counting on a network to filter your information doesn’t work anymore. Yes, it’s more convenient, but when the filters available are deeply flawed, viewers ultimately have to do it themselves  anyway. And let’s be honest, the anti-vax people aren’t interested in even basic research; they are merely seeking those whose opinions align with their baseless beliefs. "

And this is why we do need filters. A CNN or a NY Times telling me about Covid is vastly more useful, informative, and likely right, than a Twitter or Facebook stream. Viewers won't do it themselves. Sure - some anti-vaxers would say whatever to support their beliefs. But they mostly weren't born that way, they got information from rogue "sources." If we don't have trusted sources to provide information then we'd be looking at carnage. Most people won't look at a tweet, chase down who the person is, work out what else they've said, Google them to find out what expertise they might have in the subject, and then come to a decision about whether what they're saying is accurate.

Certainly, Fox News presents blatant falsifictions and misinformation, but does NBC News, ABC News or CBS News? Does NPR or PBS? Does the NYT or LAT? Does Axios or Puck? I might not like or agree with everything everyone says, but they have an editorial process that does indeed filter the firehose of "content" gushing out of the internet. And we need that.



Adam

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Kevin M.

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Feb 28, 2022, 1:36:07 PM2/28/22
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On Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 8:33 AM Adam Bowie <ad...@adambowie.co.uk> wrote:
PGage wrote:

"I admit to not having a good understanding of what a streaming-dominant television world will look like. I am not sure how linear news divisions could be maintained without a critical sized audience. aBC can always have talking heads and broadcast video it gets from others, but whatever vestige remains of an actual news gathering operation could not be maintained if it only had sizable numbers of viewers during intermediate crises. Maybe streaming networks will be able to support real news divisions in the future, but my experience with Netflix like operations has not included many live programs. Lives sporting events is the exception, but those are set pieces, relatively passive. Will a day come when one of the options on Amazon or Netflix or Disney is a live Newscast?"

This is an interesting question. Currently channels like CNN and Fox News are profitable because they create appointment to view programming in primetime that can be sold to advertisers, but also those cable bundle revenues. As the cable audience declines and everyone moves to streaming, at some point that becomes a significant challenge. 

I do think that at some point bundles will be become bigger and slightly less fluid than they are now. It's really not in, say, Disney's interest that I can subscribe for a month, binge the latest series and then cancel. If that churn becomes a major problem, then I can see it becoming more like traditional cable contracts where you have to subscribe for a year or more, and can't cancel at a moment's notice. On the other hand, it's entirely likely that Disney will eventually push you to a Disney/Hulu/ESPN combo, just as Warner-Discovery push you to an HBO Max/Discovery+/CNN combo. 

The question is whether everyone will do news, and what we've seen in recent years is that with a few exceptions, news isn't all that profitable. Local news outlets have gone, and even the local TV news operations which are perhaps profitable right now, rely on network TV to maintain their position. When those viewers go, where does leave those who can't pay or at least subsidise local news? Big regional US papers seem to be in the hands of asset-stripping hedge funds who probably aren't looking more than a handful of years forward. And then there are a few who are in much better positions and are cleaning up. The New York Times busily growing a powerful subs business, and the Washington Post having a benign billionaire owning it (benign in that I don't believe he interferes editorially). Globally, beyond CNN and some specialist financial news players like Bloomberg and CNBC, you have state funded outlets. The BBC is paid for directly via UK licence fees by citizens (although some of it is ad-supported). See also Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera and many others.  There are agencies like Reuters and AP, but they require subscribing services to stay afloat.

Lack of news means a challenge to democracy. If you don't know what's happening then anything could be happening. 

Kevin wrote:

"The vaccine coverage illustrates why counting on a network to filter your information doesn’t work anymore. Yes, it’s more convenient, but when the filters available are deeply flawed, viewers ultimately have to do it themselves  anyway. And let’s be honest, the anti-vax people aren’t interested in even basic research; they are merely seeking those whose opinions align with their baseless beliefs. "

And this is why we do need filters. A CNN or a NY Times telling me about Covid is vastly more useful, informative, and likely right, than a Twitter or Facebook stream. Viewers won't do it themselves. Sure - some anti-vaxers would say whatever to support their beliefs. But they mostly weren't born that way, they got information from rogue "sources." If we don't have trusted sources to provide information then we'd be looking at carnage. Most people won't look at a tweet, chase down who the person is, work out what else they've said, Google them to find out what expertise they might have in the subject, and then come to a decision about whether what they're saying is accurate.

Certainly, Fox News presents blatant falsifictions and misinformation, but does NBC News, ABC News or CBS News? Does NPR or PBS? Does the NYT or LAT? Does Axios or Puck? I might not like or agree with everything everyone says, but they have an editorial process that does indeed filter the firehose of "content" gushing out of the internet. And we need that.

The issue isn’t just of misinformation; it is that the networks all have specific political/partisan positions, meaning those who disagree with the politics of a network will by default disagree with the experts of a network. In short, legitimate information will be tainted because the source network is not trusted.  The news outlets fail to inform the public when they alienate half (or more) of the public. 



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Kevin M. (RPCV)

PGage

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Feb 28, 2022, 5:01:48 PM2/28/22
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BTW, Jon Oliver killed the Ukraine story last night. Especially his take on George Bush’s condemnation of Putin for unjustified invasion of another country.

PGage

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Feb 28, 2022, 5:42:49 PM2/28/22
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I wonder if the US could make some kind of deal, perhaps based on agreeing to waive challenges to media aggregation in violation of anti trust laws, in exchange for an obligation to DP set up certain minimum public service programming, including robust news gathering, a la what they did for broadcasters?

On Mon, 28 Feb 2022 at 8:33 AM Adam Bowie <ad...@adambowie.co.uk> wrote:
PGage wrote:

"I admit to not having a good understanding of what a streaming-dominant television world will look like. I am not sure how linear news divisions could be maintained without a critical sized audience. aBC can always have talking heads and broadcast video it gets from others, but whatever vestige remains of an actual news gathering operation could not be maintained if it only had sizable numbers of viewers during intermediate crises. Maybe streaming networks will be able to support real news divisions in the future, but my experience with Netflix like operations has not included many live programs. Lives sporting events is the exception, but those are set pieces, relatively passive. Will a day come when one of the options on Amazon or Netflix or Disney is a live Newscast?"

This is an interesting question. Currently channels like CNN and Fox News are profitable because they create appointment to view programming in primetime that can be sold to advertisers, but also those cable bundle revenues. As the cable audience declines and everyone moves to streaming, at some point that becomes a significant challenge. 

I do think that at some point bundles will be become bigger and slightly less fluid than they are now. It's really not in, say, Disney's interest that I can subscribe for a month, binge the latest series and then cancel. If that churn becomes a major problem, then I can see it becoming more like traditional cable contracts where you have to subscribe for a year or more, and can't cancel at a moment's notice. On the other hand, it's entirely likely that Disney will eventually push you to a Disney/Hulu/ESPN combo, just as Warner-Discovery push you to an HBO Max/Discovery+/CNN combo. 

The question is whether everyone will do news, and what we've seen in recent years is that with a few exceptions, news isn't all that profitable. Local news outlets have gone, and even the local TV news operations which are perhaps profitable right now, rely on network TV to maintain their position. When those viewers go, where does leave those who can't pay or at least subsidise local news? Big regional US papers seem to be in the hands of asset-stripping hedge funds who probably aren't looking more than a handful of years forward. And then there are a few who are in much better positions and are cleaning up. The New York Times busily growing a powerful subs business, and the Washington Post having a benign billionaire owning it (benign in that I don't believe he interferes editorially). Globally, beyond CNN and some specialist financial news players like Bloomberg and CNBC, you have state funded outlets. The BBC is paid for directly via UK licence fees by citizens (although some of it is ad-supported). See also Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera and many others.  There are agencies like Reuters and AP, but they require subscribing services to stay afloat.

Lack of news means a challenge to democracy. If you don't know what's happening then anything could be happening.
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Mar 1, 2022, 11:06:08 AM3/1/22
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I just want to note that the streaming business is still in its infancy and it’s preliminary to guess what news will be like in the future based on current models. When TV networks started offering national news broadcasts they weren’t expected to make money; they were there to show viewers that TV was as good a source for news as radio, newspapers, and magazines. Networks and cable news channels may see a streaming option as fragmenting their audience thus limiting the resources to grow and develop it. If Amazon or Apple set up a streaming news service that lost them a billion dollars a year, that’s change in the couch cushions for them.

On Feb 28, 2022, at 5:42 PM, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:


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