What's Next For TV News?

If you're a fan of your local TV news in Southern Alberta, you've probably noticed a few changes lately.  A few close friends as well as acquaintances have recently decided to leave the industry and head to "greener pastures."  The reasons have been varied but the bottom line seems to be relatively the same: the future is really uncertain.

None of them question the importance of locally-produced TV news, or journalism for that matter.  But the medium in which it is produced and how it is carried is coming under heavy questioning, much like it has been for newspapers over the last few years.  Everyone knows that change is on the horizon.  They just don't know what that change looks like.

An old friend posted on Facebook recently about HOW local TV news is going to survive, especially in a world where more and more people are trading in their cable boxes in favour of services like Netflix, Shomi, Crave TV and others.  Could local news outlets find a way to get their product on those services?  Would you watch your local news, at your own leisure, if it were available on Netflix (for example)?  Should it be an hour-long program?  Half-hour?  Or maybe you have a specific "channel" on these services, where you can just watch the stories that appeal to you, like you can do online?

This has been an interesting challenge for all media outlets (radio, TV and print) in recent years.  I'm not sure if anyone has found that "happy medium" where they're meeting the expectations of both the traditional media and the new media, especially in the last few years as newsrooms have gotten smaller with layoffs.  Either too much attention is being paid to the online side, or not enough.

What print has been battling and what TV is starting to face is the fact that the online side is immediate.  No one (consumers) seems willing to wait for the paper to come out the next day, or for the supper-hour newscast on TV.  So these outlets are pushing resources towards getting it online, whether it be through live-streaming news conferences or simply getting full stories up as soon as possible.  Radio is facing this issue to a lesser-degree, because the expectation (at least when it comes to news-based stations) always has been and always will be that we'll have it on the radio right now (or in a couple minutes).

The result is that you're getting more news quickly, whether it be on a website, through Facebook, Twitter or any other social medium.  This can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing.  How so, you ask?  In the "traditional media" sense, when you had a big story, you promoted it, and your ratings would dictate whether it was a well-received story or not.  In the online world (and in particular when it comes to those heavily-entrenched in that world), you're ultimately judged on how many retweets, likes, shares, impressions, click-throughs and views you get.  Which is all well-and-good, but I've already seen it where a story which should be viewed as important to the population gets a couple of likes and a few views, yet a story with absolutely zero impact on the world (think cute kitten videos) gets hundreds of likes and thousands of views.  By no means am I saying that journalism should be graded on this, but we do head down a slippery slope where some people will believe that it's those likes and views that are too important to avoid when you're talking about bottom lines.  We're living in a world where "going viral" is more important than the actual story that is being told.

You also can't discount the fact that many people want their news delivered to them in a certain way.  Politics is a great example of this.  Don't agree with your perception of the "bias" of a certain outlet?  Just find an outlet that more closely aligns with your views.  It doesn't even have to be a traditional news organization.  I've been shocked by how many friends are posting "stories" delivered by non-traditional media outlets, who haven't done their research and are missing some key facts to the story, or have their own bias.  Yet those same friends say they hate the bias of what they like to call "the mainstream media."  Traditional media isn't just facing off against one another, but they're also battling every blogger, commentator and guy/gal with an internet connection and an opinion, for their share of eyes and ears.  The one thing I wonder about is trust.  Do people trust traditional media anymore?  If they don't, when was that trust broken?  Who was to blame for that monumental shift in opinion?  What would it take to earn that trust back?  Or do some outlets want that trust back?  I'll use the example of a centrist organization, where "tough questions" are asked of everyone.  You'll have those on one side claiming the outlet is "obviously rooting for the other guys", yet those on the other side are ALSO saying that the outlet is "obviously rooting for the other guys."  I've seen it. It's almost better for an outlet to be hated equally by everyone, as weird as that sounds.

The other challenge is already being felt by newspapers.  Despite the fact they have done a great job in going online, the struggles with how to get people to pay for that product are apparent.  Back in the day (I hate using that saying), you paid a buck or two to get the paper, and multiply that by a few hundred thousand, and you were able to pay for the resources it took to put the product together.  But with fewer people buying an actual newspaper, they need to find ways to replace that income.  They tried paywalls and that hasn't worked to the extent it was hoped, as people have found ways to get around the paywalls.  Add in other online sources taking (aka stealing) that content and making it available to the public for free and the challenge is getting even harder.  You can try to increase the amount of advertising inside, but with fewer eyes looking at it, the reach is declining, so advertisers are more hesitant to foot the bill.  TV (and radio for that matter) is facing that same dilemma but still have a few eyes on their products.  But even that's seeming to slow down.

Revenues are down, budgets are impacted, and you're starting to see the trickle down with fewer bodies trying to produce the same amount of on-air/on-paper/online content.  The chances for "exclusives" or "in-depth" coverage become fewer and fewer because the reporters still there are just trying to make sure there's enough stories in the mix to fill what's needed.  The idea of a "beat" (like health, education, crime, etc) is essentially gone, because there's not enough people around to break it down that far.  The domino effect is quite apparent when you look at it.

What does this mean for the old TV newscast?  Do you drop it down to 30-minutes from 60-minutes to meet the "content" challenges?  Do you find a way to make newscasts available for consumers on "TV-on-demand" services so that they can watch that 30-minutes or 60-minutes at 6pm or 9pm or the next day?  Do you get away from the morning, noon, evening and late-night casts?  Do you change that structure at all?  Do you focus solely on the stories themselves and getting them online as quickly as possible, with no real "schedule"?  What kinds of stories are you going to push?  For example, will local sports make a comeback, as that's has essentially been chopped out of local 6pm newscasts?

I don't know the answers to any of these questions.  I don't know if anyone does.  But it's definitely worth the discussion, as I believe TV news is and should continue to be an important part of our world.

What if the right has already united?

This could become one of the big storylines of 2016 in Alberta politics.  As the province faces what appears to be continuing uncertainty with low oil prices, many questions are going to be asked about what's next.  All parties will be facing a myriad of questions about how they could best grapple with the economy.  Because we all know that within a few years, voters will likely look back on 2015-2016 to decide who's best to run this province.

It's hard to believe that we're already on the election trail but that's what this year could look like.  The parties will likely be trying to stake their claim on what victory looks like, because this is what voters will remember in three years.  And being in opposition, the political right will be doing everything it can to sway voters on the fence to come back to their side.  But the question becomes: can they?

You see, there's an interesting debate happening in Alberta's political world right now.  It's about "uniting the right."  They are, of course, speaking about the Wildrose and the Progressive Conservatives, who at one point in time were united.  But due to a change at the top (the post-Klein era), those sitting on the far right (the big-C conservatives) decided to create their own party (the Wildrose).  They would argue that the PC's had fallen from "just right of centre" to "just left of centre."  And maybe that's why some people weren't really surprised that when Jim Prentice (former Harper government MP and high-profile cabinet minister) took the PC leadership, some of the Wildrose faithful (including the leader) talked about getting back together with the party they were originally with, because they felt Prentice would play the perfect peace-maker.

Of course, the script didn't quite play out like that.  You all don't need a history lesson.  But there is one side of the "unite the right" debate that hasn't been made abundantly clear yet.

You see, for years, the PC Party was "just right of centre."  The whole idea of being a Progressive Conservative (which if you actually look at the name is quite the paradox: can you really be progressive and conservative at the same time?) was that they were socially progressive and fiscally conservative.  In other words, they believed in good social policy but would make sure the chequebook was in order at the same time.  And Albertans seemed to like that.  They did keep them in power for 40+ years after all.  It is a tightrope act though.  You can't focus too much on the social policy or the chequebook gets out of whack.  If you focus too much on the chequebook, you'll be throwing too much of the social policy out the door.  

And so begins the challenge for the "unite the right" movement.  What if the right is already united, under the banner of the Wildrose?  The perception is still out there that they are further right than what remains of the PC's.  So will the Wildrose be willing to wiggle over to the left a little bit to be more politically popular, in particular in the urban areas, where social issues are obviously still a very big point of contention?  Would the Wildrose be willing to operate in the same part of the political spectrum once occupied by the PC Party?  On the flipside, will the PC Party be willing to move a little more to the right to join the Wildrose?  Even beyond that, would the Wildrose be willing to saddle up next to the party they called thieves and liars, helping dismantle the dynasty?  While those two parties may agree on a few fiscal platforms, you have to wonder about the social policies.

Which begs the question: is the right already united?  And if it is, should the real debate be whether or not the "centre" needs to be united.

Now, in Alberta, the centre is a bit skewed because it's not technically in the centre but it's where the PC regime lived.  But can that party be revived after what's happened in the past few years?  What kind of leader would be needed to bring back the confidence of the people?  Can that leader shake the skeletons left behind by the last few years worth of controversy?  Or does there need to be a movement where maybe another party joins them, like the Alberta Party?  Or will the average voter just say "once a PC, always a PC"?

I was also quite interested in a recent story I was reading about Alberta being "more progressive" than some may have thought.  What I was fascinated by was the question of whether voters considered themselves to be progressive.  Not to sound too flippant, but what does that even mean?  Progressive in social policy?  Progressive in fiscal policy?  Progressive as in an NDP supporter?  Liberal supporter?  A PC supporter?  It's a pretty broad-based question if you ask me.  And then there's the implication that voting conservative in any way is supposedly wrong.  Even if it's in the PC-sense, where the taxpayer just wants their money to be spent prudently.  

The interesting thing in all of this is that if the "unite the right" movement is successful, does this take us even closer to American-style politics, where you have a definitive left-wing party and a definitive right-wing party?  And if that does, is that really what Albertans want?  They never really seemed hot and bothered by the PC's until the last couple of administrations.  So what if a party was able to promise a move back to the "good ol' days"?

As a life-long Albertan, I take offense to the idea that Albertans were nothing but hillbillies before the NDP was voted in.  This was the place to live.  People moved and stayed here.  We got "the best of the best" just as so many people had asked for.  So the question that pops into my head (yes, another one) is this: what was wrong with Alberta before?

Just to be clear, this isn't an endorsement for the PC's or any other party for that matter.  But somewhere along the line, this train has fallen off the tracks.  We've never seen political discourse like we're seeing now.  The fear-mongering, vitriol and flat-out hatred is something I never thought I'd ever see.  No matter what happens between now and the next election, we can only hope that cooler heads prevail, and someone comes forward with a solutions-based way of thinking.  That's what it felt like we were for quite some time.  If things got tough, we rolled up our sleeves and figured out how to fix it.  We didn't govern based on who would vote for us and we didn't oppose for the sake of opposing.

And until someone remembers that, I don't know if it will really matter if the left, right or centre needs to be "united."

The Ultimate Trump Card

Did you know there are 12 people vying to become the Republican presidential candidate?

That might actually come as a surprise to some people, depending on how plugged into American politics you might be.  If you're a casual news observer, you probably had no idea.

I'd like to think of myself as pretty plugged in.  But, truth be told, even I had lost track of where we were in the grand scheme of things as we head towards the next US election.  We're not even in the full election campaign stateside yet, but it feels like it's gone completely off the rails already.

We have been bombarded with what feels like nothing of substance so far when it comes to the presidential races, in particular around the GOP.  And maybe it's because I'm in Canada and we're just simply innocent bystanders watching this all develop from the outside.  But one man has dominated all of the headlines for that particular party.  And it doesn't matter if you like Donald Trump or not, this isn't good for democracy.

An educated electorate is what we're supposed to be aiming towards.  Each of the twelve candidates should be able to get their messages out there.  Yet we hardly know who those candidates are, let alone what they stand for.  The Republicans could have some of the best candidates available in this election, but no one would ever know.  Because day, after day, after day, we're inundated with stories about "The Donald".  What kind of controversial thing did he say today?  Could it be crazier than it was yesterday?  Where is he appearing tonight?

And you (the electorate) are eating it up with a giant spoon.  Trump continues to poll better and better.  And don't sit there and pretend like you're not lapping it up.  Just look at what web traffic is like for stories involving him.  More people are reading those stories than they are reading about what Ben Carson is saying.  Or Mike Huckabee.  Or Marco Rubio.

How many of the Republican candidates are getting one-on-one "exclusive" interviews with the major news outlets?  How many news clips are you seeing about each of them?  And how many are getting guest host gigs on Saturday Night Live?  Ted Cruz?  Chris Christie?  Jeb Bush?  Didn't think so.

I despise the fact that I have to talk about this on this blog.  But this is a very real issue here that we need to start talking about.  When did it become so important to be a celebrity when running for political office?  And since when did that mean more to the coverage you got, versus actually having substantial policies.  This is the exact issue that continues to stymie the oilsands (for example).  Why is it more important that they have the support of the celebrities like Neil Young or Robert Redford than the support of scientists and the people who actually live and work there?  This is a VERY real issue.  And it's going to continue to cloud the American election as well.

I guarantee some people haven't even heard these names before.  If only they had been on a TV show or two before they entered the political spectrum, maybe they would have stood a chance.

Does anyone actually know what these candidates stand for?  Jim Gilmore?  Rick Santorum?

Just do a Google search on some of these names.  I did that for Carly Fiorina.  The top result in news: "Fiorina on Rose Bowl tweet: "It was tongue-in-cheek, for heaven's sakes!"

For John Kasich: "Kasich's TV ad debut: "Never Give Up!"

For Trump: "Donald Trump: Hilary Clinton, Obama "created ISIS.""

So enlightening on all fronts. (note: sarcasm)

The real question I have in all of this is: is this what the American electorate wants out of this race?  Or is this what the electorate deserves?  I honestly don't know.

I think back to the race for the federal Liberals in Canada.  Believe it or not, there were six people in the running for that.  But the only name that EVER made headlines was Justin Trudeau.  I'd be shocked if many people knew more than one other name (they were Joyce Murray, Martha Hall Findlay, Martin Cauchon, Deborah Coyne and Karen McCrimmon).  I remember seeing Hall Findlay in Calgary at one point during the race and I was really impressed with what she brought to the table.  Yet all anyone could or wanted to talk about on both sides of the political debate was Trudeau.

And that's the thing.  This goes beyond the "left-wing" vs. "right-wing" debate.  That's not what this is about.  This is about the electorate's apparent ignorance towards getting as much information as possible to make informed decisions.  I was chatting with a friend recently about this conundrum.  You could have the most important story of the year, and it will get you five web page views.  You could have a "mean nothing" story and it will get you 5,000.  Guess which kind of story is going to be pushed more down the line?  And that's what feels like is happening here.  What's going to get you better ratings (for example): an exclusive with Trump, where who knows what he's going to say, or an exclusive with Rand Paul, where the majority of the discussion will likely be based on policy?

I'm not saying Trump doesn't deserve to be brought in as the GOP presidential candidate or to become president.  That's for you (the voter) to decide.  What I am saying is that I've been floored by how much more publicity he's received compared with the other 11 candidates, yet no one seems willing to talk about it.  There's a very real possibility that he will be the GOP candidate.  Is this cycle going to continue as he faces whoever is running for the Democrats?  Or will we actually get to start talking about real issues and policy by then?

Maybe the next president should be whoever does the best job of guest hosting SNL.  That'll get you all watching.