Tuning Out and Logging On

Since its inception, broadcast news has always been a staple of society. For decades, news organizations have used television as a medium to carry out their duty and responsibility of keeping the public informed. In return, the audience has adopted this means of sharing information as part of their daily routine. For some, like myself, turning on the news in the morning or at night has become somewhat of a ritual. And while I believe this ritual is here to stay, the way in which it will be carried out will surely change. The golden age of television news no longer shines as bright as it used to.

The end of an era for television news

Tradition television viewership is not same as it used to be. Researchers at the Reuters Institute at Oxford University have calculated that in some cases, the consumption rate of television news is falling more quickly than print newspaper readership. According to their study title What Is Happening In Television News, UK has seen the average number of television viewed by the population drop from 241 minutes per day in 2012 to 216 minutes per day in 2015. That’s a decline of 10% in just three years! Here at home, we too are seeing the decline in traditional television viewership with the CRTC reporting that approximately 160,000 Canadians cancelled their TV subscription last year alone.

There are several reasons as to why more people are cutting the cable cord. It is, however clear that the emergence of digital streaming platforms is disrupting the industry. This is especially true in the United States, as explained in Todd Spangler’s article for Variety. In fact, the title of the article says it all: Netflix Caused 50% of U.S TV Viewing Drop in 2015. In that same year, Netflix accounted for about half of the overall 3% decline in television. The result shows that Netflix’s 44 million U.S subscribers watched a total of 29 billion hours of streamed video last year alone. Furthermore, that number is expected to gradually increase in the coming years with growth expected to reach 14% of overall viewership by 2020.

Now there’s no denying that broadcast news has been the most important source of information for most countries and I believe it will continue to remain that way. On the other hand, a change in the way we watch the news is inevitable.

I believe digital streaming platforms are the future of broadcast news consumption and it’s only a matter of time before major corporations pull the plug on cable news altogether. The question now is whether or not news organizations will adapt to this new reality and make the switch. Could we soon see a “news” category on streaming platforms such as Netflix? Tune in…or should I say log on to find out.