The death recently of Peter Jennings, the last of the “Big 3” TV anchor men, has provided much fodder for the media mavens. It is amusing to listen to them pontificate about the future of the nightly network news.
There’s a wringing of hands, contemplating on what might be. “An end of an era!” they shout. “No-one can ever take their place!” say others. You know what? They’re right. But even before Brokaw and Rather left the scene, leaving only Jennings to carry on for what turned out to unfortunately be a very short time, these golden boys of broadcasting were losing their luster.
Not in the sense of capability or professionalism, but where it counts most — audience. We live in a rapidly changing world, and technology, almost daily, is changing the way we live, and nowhere is this more evident than in the way we communicate with one another and in our viewing habits.
The increase in all-news channels on cable television, and instant access to almost any news organization in the world — print or broadcast — via the Internet, has given the public a wide range of options.
And people have responded to these options, if statistics are to be believed. For instance, according to Nielsen Media, back in the '70s, 35 percent of all households tuned into Walter Cronkite or John Chancellor on an average night.
A decade ago, the evening news' share was still 24%. Today, just 18% watch Bob Schieffer on CBS and Brian Williams on NBC. In recent years, the evening-news audience has sunk 3 to 4 percent annually, falling from 32 million per night in 1996 to 25.8 million today.
Those are shocking figures, but is it a bad sign? If you’re the network, the answer is yes, but they only have themselves to blame for much of it. The Big 3 networks, for the most part, have not kept pace with the times, nor do they seem to understand that the world is a much smaller place, intertwining countries and the people who live in them, like never before.
Networks have to realize that there’s more going on in the world then the Michael Jackson case, or a young, white upper-middle class woman disappearing in Aruba. Jennings, to his credit, realized this, but the others still have not.
Let the morning and entertainment shows handle the fluff. If the nightly news wants to remain in the game, even without star power sitting at the anchor desk, it better tune in to reality, or they will find even more viewers tuning out.
