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By offering a huge array of increasingly specialized programming, cable television, along with newer innovations like DVRs and the Internet, has frayed the common social bonds born of shared experiences that network TV had once established. The appearances of MTV, ESPN, and Nickelodeon in the early days of the cable boom drew stronger demographic lines than their network counterparts, and this niche prospecting has continued as the cable landscape has evolved. Take, for example, the Spike channel. A rebranding of the Nashville Network (TNN), Spike joined MTV’s family of cable channels in 2003. In seeking to expand the appeal of the network beyond TNN’s southern-rural-male market share, Spike is now branded as a digitally savvy channel for men, not unlike the audience for a magazine like Maxim.

Because of their specialization, cable channels are more susceptible to this kind of rebranding than the broadcast networks, which must appeal to a broader segment of the audience. This means that just as cable channels can adopt a particular niche, as Spike did, they can gradually move away from their initial mission in an attempt to change (or increase) their audience. MTV, for example, spent years dealing only with music-related programming, but has become better known for reality shows like Jersey Shore and Teen Mom. Similarly, AMC made the transition from its initial identity as American Movie Classics to a major destination for original programming that happens to show older movies in its off-hours. Even a channel with a niche as seemingly simple as Cartoon Network has drifted away from its animation-only beginnings and adopted plenty of live-action programming.

Broadcasting, then, has become both broader as a whole and more niche-driven and adaptive in terms of individual channels. Certainly new generations that grow up on cable and/or the Internet rarely make a distinction between a broadcast network, a cable service, or an online streaming service. But these niche channels still tend to come from a limited number of service and content providers, with little input from citizens, just as the most-watched shows on Hulu tend to come from the subset of shows broadcast on networks and cable. The mergers and consolidations in TV and cable have worried critics who think these trends will ultimately limit political viewpoints, programming options, and technical innovation—and thus damage our democracy. Some even fear that giant companies merging cable, DBS, computer, and phone services will fix prices—preventing consumers from getting the lower prices that come when companies compete for business. Industry players have argued that given the tremendous capital investments needed to run these enterprises, conglomerates are necessary to buy up struggling companies and keep them afloat.

As such, television as it stands today can still unite a large audience, for better or for worse. For example, despite the fragmentations and specialization of post-cable television, one annual television event still captures the attention of almost every segment of the American public: the Super Bowl. One of the few surviving institutions of television’s network era, the Super Bowl still routinely draws a massive audience; the 2010 and 2011 games were two of the most-viewed programs in history, with over 100 million viewers each. The Internet, rather than detracting from a mass audience, may actually increase it, as viewers may tune in with their laptops open, watching the game, the ads, and the accompanying commentary on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere. Social networking and multiple TV platforms have only solidified Super Bowl Sunday’s place celebrating the contradictions of our democracy and economy. The game itself remains a sports competition, but since the 1980s (when lavish advertising campaigns and extravagant half-time shows became part of the ritual), the Super Bowl broadcast has become a showcase for superstars and superconsumerism. Now alongside the competition ethic that defines professional football, the Super Bowl also upholds the countervalues associated with consuming at all costs. For media-literate students, then, what does the Super Bowl tell us about what matters in broadcasting? And, by extension, American society?