Pick your own favorites. Chances are there won't be many more to join them.
Few cable and satellite networks are a force anymore, the byproduct of sudden changes in how people entertain themselves. Several have lost more than half their audiences in a decade. They've essentially become ghost networks, filling their schedules with reruns and barely trying to push toward anything new.
Says
As they fade, so are the communities they helped to create.
WHAT HAS BEEN LOST?
Pockets of success remain, notably with lifestyle and news programming. And it's not like there's nothing to watch. You'll find more options on
Yet something undeniably has been lost. Stewart's triumphant return to
Cable TV primarily took flight in the 1980s, breaking the iron grip of
“People who were previously marginalized by the focus on mass culture suddenly got a voice and a connection with other people like them,” Deggans says. “So young music fans worldwide bonded over
Nickelodeon and
Networks were endlessly malleable, too. Once
Now
The general interest
Without favorites like “The Walking Dead” or “Better Call Saul,” AMC's prime-time viewership sunk 73%. The Disney Channel, birthplace to young stars like
TBS, TNT, History, Lifetime, FX, A&E,
For many, most of the schedules are big blocks of reruns: “Seinfeld” and “The Office” on
That's not appointment TV. It's accidental. Ghosts.
MAYBE GOING DOWN THIS ROAD WAS INEVITABLE
With the explosion of
Was the downfall of cable the inevitable result? “That's the gazillion-dollar question,” Herzog says.
“The conglomerates, they definitely jumped the gun, I think, in shifting their assets away from the cable networks and left them as zombies,” says
In 2015, some 87% of American homes had a cable or satellite television subscription, according to the Nielsen company. By 2023, only 47% of homes subscribed. If you include services like Hulu or YouTube TV, the percentage of homes with access to multiple channels was 62% last year, Nielsen said.
If fewer people have cable, then obviously fewer are watching. But it's a classic chicken-and-egg situation: Have the number of subscribers dropped because people feel the networks have less to offer? Or is less being offered because there are fewer viewers?
To illustrate how fast habits are changing, a survey taken in January by the digital marketing agency Adtaxi found that 73% of viewers turned to streaming before cable or broadcast when they sat down to watch TV. Only a year earlier, 42% said streaming was their default choice.
Much of what people stream are programs originally on broadcast and cable. That provided a windfall hard to resist for creators of those shows, one top executive said. The tradeoff was getting people accustomed to a different kind of viewing experience — watching what they wanted, when they wanted it, even binging. All without the distraction of commercials, at least at first.
Remember couch potatoes? Channel surfers? Now the "
That's more than trading descriptive phrases. Reclining before a big screen with a remote control, searching for something to do, is an activity fading with the times, says
Streaming is more pro-active, he says. Tik-Tok, YouTube and gaming are supplanting television in occupying people who are simply looking to fill some time. “They figured out passivity,” Landgraf says. He says he's optimistic FX's parent,
That's no small thing when the industry is built upon advertisers who pay to reach those consumers — active or passive.
While streaming offers viewers the convenience of making their own schedules, its algorithms are designed to push people into ever-smaller circles, suggesting programming similar to what they've already watched before, Landgraf said. It further lessens the opportunities for communal viewing experiences, or stumbling upon something that broadens your outlook.
“Collectively," he says, “we've lost something.”
THE ROAD TO STREAMING — AND TO THE FUTURE
Landgraf's FX is one of the few companies keeping its brand strong while making a transition to streaming. “The Bear,” which just won an Emmy for best comedy, is an FX show but available exclusively on the Hulu streaming service. “American Horror Story” is on the actual FX television network. Several shows toggle between both.
There are still networks keeping the light on.
Despite the exodus of viewers, ghost networks survive because they still make money for their owners. Cable and satellite systems pay fees to carry them — passed on to consumers, of course — and advertisers buy commercials.
When that changes, all bets are off, and odds are the ghosts will move on.
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