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Patmos Rhodes

That’s Showbiz: The Evolving World of Media Entertainment

  • William Romanowski
  • Apr 7
  • 7 min read

April 2025

(7-minute read)

Keywords: broadcasting; narrowcasting; streaming; media consolidation

 

Remember Bruce Springsteen’s frustration with having “57 Channels (and Nothin’ On)” back in 1992? Now we’ve got hundreds of channels delivered by cable, satellite, and streaming services, like Hulu and YouTube TV. And on top of that Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, and others each have their own subscription-based streaming channels.

 

Some of you will remember the days of network broadcast TV when there were only three channels – ABC, CBS, NBC – and always something on my mother wanted to watch. Remember The Lawrence Welk Show?


The Lawrence Welk Show, 1969
The Lawrence Welk Show, 1969

The aim of broadcasting was to reach a wide viewership (in the abstract, and with a bit of exaggeration, 2 to 103 years old) so that advertisers would pay more for commercial space. But in reality, viewers for The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971), which ranked first in the Nielsen ratings the first two seasons (and remained in the top twelve for seven of its nine-year run), were mostly old, rural, and not exactly in the market for Yamaha motorcycles.

 


Narrowcasting

The concept of narrowcasting was introduced in the 1970s to increase advertising revenues with a more targeted approach. Shows like M*A*S*H, All in the Family, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show were aimed at a specific demographic market, 18-to-34-year-olds. A company like Yamaha was willing to pay more for an advertising buy that reached an audience, the majority potential buyers for its motorcycles. While profitable, in effect the narrowcasting model abandoned – at least in concept – the “mass” audience.


The Mary Tyler Moore Show, 1977
The Mary Tyler Moore Show, 1977

Other than the Super Bowl – arguably an American national holiday – there really is no mass television audience left. In other words, there are no programs we watch en masse (if we ever did). Even Thursday Night Football requires an Amazon Prime membership now.

 

With the advent of cable television in the 1970s, channels themselves had a specific format and delivered programming and advertising aimed at a narrowly defined audience now. Demographics (age, gender, income) gave way to psychographics (psychological + demographics) and an emphasis on variables like beliefs, values, attitudes, opinions, personal interests, and lifestyles.

 

  • In 1979, ESPN began featuring sporting events and news for enthusiasts.

  • In 1980, CNN, the first all-news channel with 24-hour coverage in the United States, catered to news junkies.

  • In 1981, MTV: Music Television rocked around the clock with music videos for 12-to-25-year-olds, fitting between Nickelodeon (7-11-year-olds) and HBO, a premium channel aimed mostly at adults.


The media environment has undergone a huge transformation since the days of Leave It to Beaver and traditional broadcasting television. What made this possible was 1) the formation of global media conglomerates and 2) an explosion in communication technologies and services that enabled the flow of content across multiple platforms, e.g., film, TV, radio, cable, internet, and print media.[1]

 

Streaming

That transformation is still underway. Once a stable and profitable business, cable television revenues are falling with people opting for streaming. How’s that working out?

 

According to one industry analyst:

 

“For streaming, the average number of services per household has been stuck at four for a while. One of those four is Netflix, the second is Amazon – it comes with Prime – and third is some combination of Disney’s offerings. Fourth place is up for grabs. That’s what all the rest are fighting over.”

 

Media companies are trying all sorts of things to make their streaming units profitable and cut down on people churning – subscribe, watch, cancel, repeat – which of course creates instability. You’ve probably noticed that some companies are:

 

  • Increasing monthly subscription fees (hold on, tiger)

  • Cracking down on password sharing (catch me if you can)

  • Offering a lower-priced tier that includes advertisements (Schwab!)

  • Bundling packages (Bundlerooski!) offering several streaming services at a discounted price

  • And cutting back spending on original programming (The Crown, Ted Lasso, Yellowstone, and Game of Thrones)

 

If the future of the streaming industry is still up in the air, the potential market is not. According to one report:

 

As of February 2025, there were 5.56 billion internet users worldwide, which amounted to 67.9 percent of the global population. Of this total, 5.24 billion, or 63.9 percent of the world’s population, were social media users. 

Companies going it alone using a direct-to-consumer distribution model (i.e., customers subscribe to a company’s service and content) has not proven to be a successful and sustainable business model for the entire industry. The direct-to-consumer model has been profitable for Netflix – the industry leader – and Disney (Hulu, Disney+, ESPN+), but the streaming units of other media companies, like Paramount+ and Warner Bros Discovery, are just starting to get into the black and profitability projections are not inspiring.

 

Have you had a conversation like this?

 

“Have you seen [such and such]?”

“No, that’s on [fill in the blank] and I don’t get that.”

 

What I take from talk like that is 1) people are only willing to pay so much to satisfy their viewing pleasure (apparently four streaming services on average), and 2) there is no one service that has everything they’d like to watch (based on reviews and word-of-mouth). Using my examples above, The Crown is on Netflix, Ted Lasso Apple TV+, Yellowstone Paramount +, and Game of Thrones on Max.

 

It’s highly unlikely, well, practically impossible churners will be loyal to a service, like Disney or Paramount+, as if it was a brand, when the fourth season of Ted Lasso starts up again on Apple TV+.

 

And now sportscasts too, which draw large ratings and are a major driver for streaming services – if not the motherlode – are steadily becoming available only on different subscription services. As I mentioned earlier, Thursday Night Football is on Amazon Prime, which is adding NASCAR. Netflix will be streaming two NFL games on Christmas Day (must-see-TV if your team in playing that day). Amazon and Peacock will start streaming NBA and WNBA games this upcoming season (2025-2026). Just imagine if the Super Bowl was only going to available on Max or YouTube.

 

Hopes and Fears

Who knows how this will all shake down?

 

I’ve gathered a possible scenario from reports and a conversation here and there with people who know way, way more about the media industries than I do. Instead of media companies producing content for their own platforms (the direct-to-consumer distribution model), license that content to another party, some big tech company for example, like Apple or Microsoft I suppose, for streaming (distribution). That’s basically the way it happened in the broadcast and cable eras.

 

If done right, in theory at least, there should be room for the big production companies and small independent ones, that are often a source of innovation and inclusive representation. Company profitability, a cornucopia of consumer choice, a leveling of prices, ease of navigation, a platform for independent productions, and a broader range of perspectives. What could possibly go wrong? Um, you’ve heard the saying about the best-laid plans?

 

Today’s media environment is both a blessing and a curse, shaped by contradictory trends. The concentration of ownership has brought a proliferation of products and services. In a country as large and diverse as the United States, the global market notwithstanding, an assortment of media entertainment options has many benefits (rising costs for cable, internet, and subscription fees not one of them). Enlarged consumer choice has brought more social fragmentation. If the size and scope of media conglomerates is necessary to compete in a global marketplace, it is also apparent that media concentration prohibits competition, reduces consumer power, and shrinks diversity, both in terms of ownership and the range of views and perspectives presented in the media.



I have my own fears about more media consolidation. That independent voices will be squeezed out as often happens to maximize profits, or more alarmingly, that instead of serving the flourishing of a democratic society, the media will come under the thumb of authoritarian rule. At the same time, as I wrote in an earlier blog post, currently the proliferation of media has fragmented the viewing audience and helped propel American society into the post-truth age, where perception is reality and everyone has their own set of alternative facts.

 

Perhaps, perhaps, the right mix of consolidation, legislative regulation ensuring space for a variety of content providers might create an environment to make the most of digital media and internet streaming. Not only that, but in the best possible world level the playing field some so that our media system can better fulfill its roles as a provider of entertainment, news, and information. One can only hope.


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Footnotes

[1] Media scholar Henry Jenkins aptly named this convergence of previously separate media in digital environments a “convergence culture.” Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 2.


Photo Credits (in order of appearance)

William D. Romanowski is an award-winning commentator on the intersection of religion and popular culture and author of a number of books, including Reforming Hollywood: How Protestants Fought for Freedom at the Movies and Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture. With his continuing commentary, he is trading footnotes for fiction, writing novels under the pen name (or nom de plume, as the French put it), Patmos Rhodes.






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