This, according to Associated Press business writer Andrew Vanacore, who says “For more than 60 years, TV stations have broadcast news, sports and entertainment for free and made their money by showing commercials. That might not work much longer.”
The old model of broadcasting set programs on set days and times, with commercials primarily footing the bill, is unraveling at ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and the local stations that carry the networks’ programming. Cable TV and the Web have stolen the audience for free TV and siphoned its ad dollars. And the recession has squeezed advertising further, forcing broadcasters to find new means of revenue to pay for programming.
These changes will soon play out in living rooms across the country and could mean higher cable or satellite TV bills, as the networks and local stations try to squeeze out every dime they can get for the right to show broadcast TV channels in their lineups. The networks might even ditch free broadcast signals in the next few years. Instead, they could operate as cable channels — a move that could spell the end of free TV as Americans have known it since the 1940s.
“Good programming is expensive,” said Fox owner Rupert Murdoch, who was recently involved in a New Year’s Eve stand-off with Time Warner Cable to either pay them more per customer, or they would pull the plug on their programming. “It can no longer be supported solely by advertising revenues.” The future of free TV also could be altered now that the biggest pay-TV provider, Comcast Corp., has purchased and will soon take control of NBC. Comcast has not signaled plans to end NBC’s free broadcasts, but Jeff Zucker, who runs NBC, CNBC and Bravo, told investors this month that “the cable model is just superior to the broadcast model.”
