It’s no secret that standard-fare television no longer commands the audiences it once did. The days when, for example, most television sets in North America were simultaneously tuned to the last episode of M*A*S*H are long gone.
Streaming and cord-cutting are just two items that have changed the media landscape in ways we likely wouldn’t have envisaged a decade ago. And they were superimposed on a hundred-plus channel universe, which was already so different from a time when a handful or two of networks controlled the television channel dial in North America.
It is also no secret that TV news consumption has completely changed. Here in the Vancouver market, the long-running News Hour on BCTV, later rebranded as Global News, was the undisputed king of local TV news for decades, and indeed, that particular show was sometimes lauded as the top-drawing local news show in all of North America.
Recently, retired longtime BCTV reporter Harvey Oberfeld managed to get his hands on some tightly held ratings data for TV news programming in the Metro Vancouver market. Oberfeld has previously published numerous pieces on what he perceives as the decline in the quality of TV news journalism, particularly at his former employer.
With the headline “CTV News Shows Signs of Advancing on Global,” Oberfeld’s piece, published at harveyoberfeld.ca/blog, notes that he obtained four days of data in April and May of TV news ratings in three markets: Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver. In his blog post, he only speculates about the Vancouver data.
Oberfeld begins by revisiting the generally well-known mantra that BCTV News in its heyday typically outdrew its closest competitor with five or six times the viewers. Put another way, BCTV News would draw half a million or more viewers with its 6 p.m. flagship newscast, and CTV might manage, say, a hundred thousand. CKVU, now rebranded as City News, and CBC often barely registered on the ratings scales.
From this recent data snapshot, Oberfeld concludes that the gap between Global and CTV has narrowed dramatically, and he speculates that on some days CTV is even pulling ahead of its longtime rival. Some of his data shows CTV outdrawing Global for the 5 p.m. news slot on all four dates.
Why that might be is really speculative as well. Oberfeld puts it down to a decline in journalistic standards at his former workplace: “lower reporting quality, poorer writing quality, almost non-existent tough questioning or hard challenging of those in power, even when they make gaffes or fail to deliver what they promised.”
In one of many comments on the blog post, writer “e.a.f” observes, “Watching the news on TV is so aging baby boomer. Young people just check their cell phones, and it’s all there. As they age and their eyesight deteriorates, they may switch to TV, but we will have to wait and see.”
For some, local TV news ended decades ago when the hundred-channel universe became commonplace in our homes. Streaming services have only added further complexity to the media landscape.
And then there is cord-cutting, the cancellation of TV subscription packages in favour of internet-based content. Cord-cutting appears to have accelerated in recent years, driven in part by the ever-spiralling prices of such packages. However, cord-cutting hasn’t brought quite the savings subscribers might have expected, as the service providers have raised internet prices to offset losses on the TV side.
As the commenter above observed, cell phone usage has also altered the news viewing landscape. Rather than watching a packaged news program, many prefer to use news feeds such as Apple News or Flipboard, if, that is, they even bother with news consumption at all.
In some respects, it might be argued that whether or not CTV News is able to pull even or perhaps beat Global News for ratings in the Metro Vancouver marketplace is not the point. Rather, both may be fighting for dominance in an ever-declining public appetite for TV news in general and local TV news in particular. Oberfeld suggests that the combined Global-CTV news audience for the flagship 6 p.m. slot is about half what it was back in the days when BCTV alone pulled in those half-million or more audience numbers.
Terrestrial radio (as opposed to satellite radio) may already have passed its best-before date. Although CKNW still leads in the ratings, the news operation at the station is essentially unrecognizable from the days when the legendary Warren Barker commanded a staff of dozens. Today’s version is largely devoid of reporters, and most newscasts have been cut to just a couple of minutes in length.
There has been some debate about the potential demise of AM radio in North America, particularly driven by manufacturer decisions to leave such coverage out of their car entertainment systems. However, we’ll leave that issue for another column. What we can add is that as this column went to press, Bell Media announced it was pulling the plug, with immediate effect to some 1,300 positions, on six of its Canadian radio stations, including two here in Vancouver. Listeners are being met with a music loop interspersed with a recording announcing immediate shutdowns for 1040 AM (operating as Funny 1040), and 1410 AM (operating as BNN Bloomberg Radio).
Is TV news still a staple for you, especially local TV news? For me, it still is to some extent, but I’m just as likely to be found watching BBC World News, CNN, or MSNBC rather than news feeds from Global, CTV, CBC, or Rogers-owned CityNews.
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