Okay, I'm going to beat this "Television-is-dead" horse once last time. But the stick we're using this week has nothing to do with comedy or drama -- and everything to do with why most people subscribe to cable packages in the first place.
Much as we creative types want to believe we're the be and end all to televised entertainment, we're not. Yes, there's a lot of that on the tube and there are a ton of specialty channels that continue to regurgitate the hit shows from every era of television ad nauseum. Play your cards right and you can even catch the same episode of almost anything you once loved several times a night.
While the bent of many current services may lead you to believe that genres like bachelorettes, cooking contests, fishing for crabs and big rig crashes on busy highways have a shitload of followers, the truth is most people keep forking over money to cable companies for two things -- news and sports -- with the latter being the gold standard for raking in big ad buys and humongous audiences.
And while you've all heard of the ridiculous prices big brands will pay to be associated with the Superbowl, it's the money from sports in general that keeps many networks or their corporate overlords in the black -- and therefore capable of producing million dollar episodes of your favorite doctor - lawyer - whatever series.
Imagine what would become of neighborhood sports bars if there wasn't a 100 inch television on every wall and you might see what will happen to most television stations or the broadcast conglomerates they're part of if big league sports aren't on the menu.
And that day is not far off.
At the moment, Canada's various film and TV creative guilds are lobbying government to save the thousands of jobs the CRTC threatened by downgrading the required contribution of local cable companies to program funding.
Now ask yourself how much sense that makes, when jobs are rapidly disappearing among journalists in the news divisions and just about everybody who works in televised sports.
A couple of months ago, the leading Sports network South of the border laid off 300 behind the camera staffers. A month ago they cut loose 100 of the familiar faces who've graced the screen.
The reason for that is simple. ESPN's overall subscriptions are down 13% while the fees the professional leagues are demanding for access to their product continue to rise.
The economics are unsustainable. And they're about to get worse.
Beginning this fall, Amazon will be offering their Prime subscribers the National Football League's Thursday night games. Games that will also be carried (as they have for generations) by CBS and NBC. Except....
Due to the complete lack of interest in signing up for cable among young people in particular, the advertiser coveted 18-35 demographic will disproportionately be watching online. Meaning CBS and NBC will no longer be able to charge the ad rates that have up to now kept pace with the NFL's licensing fees.
To make matters worse, Facebook is experimenting with college basketball games and several other services are making pretty much any game anywhere available. There's a whole list of those places here.
And very soon, that will begin to impact the amount of money all the traditional networks have available to spend on prime time drama.
A few days ago "Hawaii Five-O" cast members Grace Park and Daniel Dae Kim departed the series because producers would not increase their salaries. And while some might spin that in a different direction like, say, racism -- it might just be simple economics.
First corners get cut. Then the number of new shows in development get cut. Then the number of series episodes or shows in general get cut.
Does that remind anybody of the last few years of Canadian TV?
Comedy and Drama do not exist in some kind of bubble, safe, separate and apart from the rest of the program schedule. Sports, News, Daytime Programming, Prime Time -- they all depend on each other. And when one becomes a sinkhole, the rest go down with it.
To quote an ESPN Sportscaster who in doing a baseball injury report, once appended the usual so-and-so is day to day by adding "But then, aren't we all".
Instead of trying to save a few jobs in one segment of the industry, we better all start thinking about how we're going to continue to do the jobs we've all been trained for in the coming online world.
Television as we know it is gone. Let the Games begin...
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