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The Fracturing Of The Monoculture

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If you are spending too much of your free time these days wondering what the fate of broadcast television in the near future is going to be, take some comfort in knowing that you are not alone. With the postings of people who are “getting out of the business” every day (whether by their own choice or as a result of never-ending cutbacks) you would.be forgiven if you felt that you might be the last person left in the building when they turn off the studio lights once and for all at some point.

Even if you feel reasonably secure in your current situation, there is almost always that nagging suspicion that things could just change with little or no warning. And though there is almost no line of work that isn’t in the same turmoil these days, it just feels more cataclysmic because it happens to be the one you are trying to make a living in.

We here at TVND.Com feel your angst and share your wondering about just how a business that once seemed relatively stable and had a bright future now seems to have precious little of both of those qualities.

One revelation that might be helpful came to us in digesting the continuing post-game analysis of CBS's decision to end “The Late Show” next May. We were watching the latest episode of the “Pivot” podcast with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway via YouTube and the two hosts were giving their thoughts on whether they thought the move was strictly a financial one--or if there were other factors in play. Swisher at one point referenced the phrase “the fracturing of the monoculture” and that hit us like the proverbial “bolt from the blue.” (As an aside, we highly recommend the Pivot podcast as worth being on your playlist.)

Think about it. Nearly everything that is happening in the world may well be captured in that one phrase: “The fracturing of the monoculture."

Wikipedia, the online reference that has become this century’s replacement for the old World Book Encyclopedias that lined the bookshelves of many homes years ago, refers to term monoculture in this way: "The monoculture (also called global monoculture) is a concept in popular culture studies in which facets of popular culture are experienced by everyone at once, either globally or nationally."

Like any good theory, the monoculture one has supporters and those who write it off as being a myth. The Wikipedia entry on the topic does a solid job of providing a basic understanding of just what monoculture is. Like broadcast television, it is traced back to having roots in the 1950s and continuing on to the dawn of the 21st century. Also like broadcast television, the monoculture has been fractured by (and may possibly be ended by) the rise of streaming media, which of course has allowed everyone to both consume and create their own media, tailored to each individual's interests and beliefs. Compare that to a time when many people were part of shared cultural experiences, typically delivered or documented by what was euphemistically labelled as “the mass media."

One shining example of the monoculture era has been recently celebrated on its 40th anniversary. On Saturday, July 13th, 1985, the world witnessed the event known as "Live Aid." The music concert for charity was held simultaneously in London at Wembley Stadium and in Philadelphia at JFK Stadium. It was beamed via satellites to an estimated television audience of nearly 2 billion people in 150 nations. Raising funds for famine relief for Ethiopia was the primary goal of organizers Bob Geldof and Midge Ure. It was an effort that had started the previous holiday season of 1984, with the release of the hit record “Do They Know It's Christmas?” That effort would inspire the US recording industry to respond with its own record, “We Are The World” in January of 1985 and released for the domestic-based Ethiopian aid effort called “USA for Africa."

As a 24-hour long musical event, Live Aid’s star power is almost hard to quantify today. So many major recording stars of the day performed on the stages in London and Philadelphia, it would be easier to list those who were notable for their absence. Phil Collins was notable in appearing in both the UK and US venues, jumping on the supersonic Concorde after appearing first in London to make it to Philadelphia and perform there. As a television event, here in the United States, despite ABC carrying a three-hour primetime special on that Saturday night, it was upstart cable network MTV that truly planted its flag by airing all 24 hours of the concert. In the US, the television broadcasts on ABC and MTV contained commercials, whereas in the UK, the BBC aired it without commercial interruption.

The cultural impact of Live Aid has been dissected and debated for years. Performer Adam Ant came to regret his involvement and has been quoted as saying: “It was the end of rock n roll.”  Live Aid's chaotic back story is the stuff of many accounts, and whether the funds raised actually helped feed the poorest victims of the famine has also been debated in the years since. A comment from Bob Dylan about the need to help US farmers at the event inspired the US charity concert “Farm Aid,” which was first staged and telecast a few months later in 1985. That effort to raise money for struggling US farmers has become an annual event.

There are, of course, many other events that might be identified as the largest examples of the idea of monoculture. But for our purposes, the timing of an event in popular culture where so many people witnessed it through the lenses of television cameras transmitted to screens all around the world is hard to equal. 1985 may also be seen by history as the zenith of television news. The broadcast network’s news divisions, anchored by Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings, had serious 24-hour competition from the still relatively nascent Cable News Network. Would-be competitor Satellite News Channel had come and gone in just 16 months, and it would be a decade before MSNBC or Fox News Channel would launch.

The mid-1980s also saw the rise of local television stations’ news departments into what we know them to be today.

Successful local stations had grown their operations with more hours on the air, larger staffs and the latest technologies such as their own weather radars, helicopters and satellite trucks, that vastly expanded their coverage abilities. The battles for the largest number of viewers in each local market were fierce and millions were spent to generate even more millions in advertising revenues.

It would be a decade and into the mid-1990s before “on demand” television would be delivered by cable television operators, and digital video recorders such as TiVO would become common. At the same time, the data technology that made it possible to deliver on-demand TV programming to many households via cable was being adapted to become “Broadband” and deliver something called the "World Wide Web” into homes as well. Crude web pages would evolve into the multimedia platforms that would come to feature the streaming of audio and video.

Much like the interstate highways that would criss-cross the nation, the so-called “information superhighway” would blanket America—and the world.

Which all roughly brings us to today. It is hard to imagine that a Live Aid-sized event could be pulled off some forty years later. (Even if the situation on the ground in Gaza might be as large as a humanitarian crisis as Ethiopia was in '85.) Few things rivet the world’s attention so widely, save for perhaps wars, sports, and sex. People have become more insulated and tribal around their beliefs and interests—and the technology of today’s media creation and distribution allows for anyone to find like-minded people who share their beliefs and interests to the exclusion of needing anything resembling “mass media” as we once may have known it.

Thus, the fracturing of the monoculture continues at an ever-increasing pace. With that fracturing comes the fight for ever-shrinking audiences. Not the size of the overall audience is smaller, but rather that the staggering overload of content, which we loosely call “social media”, forces the segmentation of the audience into ever-shrinking slices of the “attention pie."

It is hard to imagine what, if anything, might bring our nation--or our world--back to a singular shared vision for more than a few minutes or hours at a time. The news cycle is spinning faster than a child’s toy top—but it feels like we are reaching that point just before the top slows down enough and then falls over. But history has a way of defining each era and shifting our focus. We believe the news organizations that will survive (and hopefully thrive) will be the ones that lean into being as genuine and authentic as possible. If you follow creators on your favorite platforms, it is likely because you are interested in what they are sharing and you find them to be genuine and authentic. Local television stations must tap into that same zeitgeist to connect with their fractured audiences on more than just the traditional broadcast platform. Or just scattershot posting on whatever social platform seems hot at the moment. This will be difficult because the revenue models will not be the same, and there will be a period of transition that will be difficult.

Even the streaming giants are dealing with this very challenge. 

As the monoculture fractures, we will need to find our own tribes of people--from all walks of life and deliver to them more of what they are looking for, where they are looking for it (currently that is more YouTube than anyplace else) and make it available when they want it (which is always right now.)

Call it “The rise of the minicultures.” Coming soon to a screen near you. 

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