“New viewers are not coming to network television. How do you build for the future? If I was a young executive, I don’t know if I would come into the network business. I’d probably rather program Comedy Central.”
LESLIE MOONVES, PRESIDENT OF CBS TELEVISION, 1998
While only 14 percent of all U.S. homes received cable in 1977, by 1985 that percentage had climbed to 46. By the summer of 1997, basic cable channels had captured a larger prime-time audience than the broadcast networks had. The cable industry’s rapid rise to prominence was partly due to the shortcomings of broadcast television. Beyond improving signal reception in most communities, the cable era introduced narrowcasting—the providing of specialized programming for diverse and fragmented groups. Attracting both advertisers and audiences, cable programs provide access to certain target audiences that cannot be guaranteed in broadcasting. For example, a golf-equipment manufacturer can buy ads on the Golf Channel and reach only golf enthusiasts. (See “Case Study: ESPN: Sports and Stories” for more on narrowcasting.)
As cable channels have become more and more like specialized magazines or radio formats, they have siphoned off network viewers, and the networks’ role as the chief programmer of our shared culture has eroded. For example, back in 1980 the Big Three evening news programs had a combined audience of more than fifty million on a typical weekday evening. By 2012 and 2013, though, that audience had shrunk to twenty million.1 In addition, through its greater channel capacity, cable has provided more access. In many communities, various public, government, and educational channels have made it possible for anyone to air a point of view or produce a TV program. When it has lived up to its potential, cable has offered the public opportunities to participate more fully in the democratic promise of television.