Brian Stelter - The End of Companion Television

[Celerity]

CNN’s Headline News may seem thoroughly old-fashioned now that it’s dead. But its demise is a reminder of the creeping nature of media obsolescence.

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/12/hln-network-layoffs-cnn/672332/

https://archive.ph/1Vn2j



Media Winter is here once more, and it is getting ugly. It seems as though every news giant is shrinking toward 2023 through end-of-year layoffs, hiring freezes, or otherwise Dickensian austerity. Text chains and Slack channels are bursting with farewells and expressions of uncertainty about the future.

Industry veterans will tell you they’ve come to expect these Christmas-time cutbacks. The Gannett newspaper chain is laying off scores of local and national journalists. NPR is looking for ways to save at least $10 million. The Washington Post is ending its Sunday magazine. CNN, where I was an anchor until August, is cutting several hundred jobs.

As usual, explanations vary. The advertising marketplace is softening. Economic headwinds are worsening. Shareholder demands are unforgiving. But the effect is always the same: contraction, lost livelihoods, diminished brands, fewer outlets for both reporters and consumers.

Yet there’s something different this time around. Job losses in journalism have been rolling across the industry for decades now. But it’s not every day that a fixture of cable television goes belly up. The demise of HLN, CNN’s 40-year-old sister station, which will stop airing original newscasts next week, deserves attention not just because it marks the end of an era but because it’s a reminder of how eras in media actually end. Before death comes obsolescence.

snip

[Sneederbunk]

1. Predictable since cable news has gone all politics.

[HAB911]

2. Give me back the Headline News

with Mistress Lynne Russell, sheriff's deputy talking head 1983 to 2001

[badhair77]

3. Interesting perspective.

Thanks for posting this link.

[W_HAMILTON]

4. What's funny is...

...after I started boycotting CNN for its rightward shift, I started watching more HLN because I find their bite-sized crime documentaries entertaining to watch. I prefer to watch the news to keep up to date on what is happening, but sometimes MSNBC is running stories (or hosts, I'm looking at your Ari Melber!) that I don't especially care much for, so I look for something else to watch.

Now Licht is apparently ruining HLN for me like he already did CNN. Gee, thanks for nothing...

[Xavier Breath]

5. Wasn't aware that HLN still had newscasts anymore.

Any time I've went past that channel in recent years there was always some reality show marathon being telecast. A far cry from the '80s when the :30 HLN newscasts and Bobby Batista were fixtures in our house.

[Initech]

6. "The advertising marketplace is softening"

That's what happens when 8 of the 9 advertisements during a given commercial break are for insurance companies, and each one is worse than the next.