Cable TV is dying because it’s too biased
Cable TV is not doing well. All of the mainstream cable networks have declining viewer numbers. CNN’s viewership dropped from 1.2 million to 749,000 in the week ending April 25. Other news networks, have seen similar declines and Canadian networks are no exception. In December 2020 it was revealed that the CBC had only 3.9 per cent of the Canadian viewing audience. What’s behind the drop in the cable industry?
People are going elsewhere, but why? The reason may be that they don’t like the messaging. When you go to ESPN (another declining network) to enjoy a sporting event after a long day you often get a social justice diatribe or propaganda about how bad your nation is, or how you are deficient as a human being and that you had better smarten up and embrace “woke” culture.
CNN, CBS, and the whole group of biased moralizing cable TV pundits don’t realize that the people are not as witless as they believe them to be. We get it. Outside the editorial pages we want the news to be as impartial as possible. After hearing the facts we will make up our own minds, thank you very much. It would be nice to go back to the days when you couldn’t tell the politics of a newscaster like the CBC’s George Maclean or CBS’s Walter Cronkite. But that isn’t likely to happen now. People know it, and they are voting with their feet.
A 20-something friend of mine recently said to me “Don’t you get it? My generation doesn’t watch cable TV?” I was a bit shocked. Like so many other boomers, I was brought up on it. It shaped our world view and often acted as a surrogate babysitter. But cable is dying. A new “network society” is replacing it. In some ways it is sad, but it may ultimately prove to be a good thing, providing more freedom of thought and diverse viewpoints.
In the end cable did it to itself. If you keep propagandizing (from only one side of the political spectrum) people are eventually going to get fed up with you. That seems to be what has happened and people are now looking elsewhere. Sorry cable TV, you blew it, and until you represent the “silent majority” again you aren’t going to win the hearts and minds of the people.
Perry Foster
Duncan