Are The Networks Showing Their Age?

Digital Home Entertainment, Jan/Feb 1998

Digital Home Entertainment was a Home Theater sister publication focused on “convergence,” the buzz term of the late 1990s that described the expected internet-driven melding of technology, media, and related industries into unified devices and companies. DHE failed to find an audience under its founding editor, and I was eventually named editor and tasked with converting it into a gadget magazine. But toward the end of its first run I contributed this cover story story about the threats and opportunities facing the legacy broadcast networks. Some 28 years later, the audience fragmentation I cited back then has increased dramatically with the introduction of many more content providers on cable and the emergence of on-demand streamed programming. But the networks continue to chug along today on the strength of their live sports programming and news divisions (both of which are now showing strain from competition), and the retransmission fees for local programming collected from cable/satellite providers and streaming services. Each are now also part of larger corporate entities that help keep them vital.