This is 2023, and I am 56 years old, and even I can admit the death of cable news is upon us. But really, the death of cable news has been a slow death since late 2001.
I always listened to Breitbart News on SiriusXM on my drive to work. I heard the show host talk about the last regular American day. As Generation X and Boomers know, it was September 10, 2001. After that day, everything changed.
Sure, we were patriotic briefly after September 11, 2001, but sadly, most of you have forgotten.
E.D. Hill was still on Fox News when the terror attacks took place. Remember her? That’s how long ago this was because when you hear 2001, it still seems like it was just yesterday. But, of course, it wasn’t. Twenty-two years ago.
The following social media sites made their debut:
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- Facebook February 2004
- YouTube February 2005
- Twitter March 2006
- Instagram October 2010
- Snapchat July 2011
- TikTok September 2016
So I will say 2004 was the beginning of a slow death for cable news.
But I tried to hang on to it. I am in that demographic of borderline Generation X and Boomers, the last of the old-fashioned, before the internet, answering a rotary phone and talking to people face-to-face type of folks.
So yes, I am in the last generation that received my daily news from a cable network. I quit listening to the local news in the 90s. But I loved my cable news. I had it on the television every single day.
Fox News launched on October 7, 1996
My daughter was 18 months old, and my son was born one month later. I had been a loyal Today Show viewer before then. But when one of my friends told me about Fox News, I thought I’d try it out, and I had been hooked ever since I saw Steve Doocy, E.D. Hill, and Brian Kilmeade sitting in the small studio delivering the news to me in the mornings.
And they were in my living room during a White House sex scandal, The Starr Report, impeaching of a U.S. President, when they caught the Unabomber, the coming of the end of the world with the Y2K bug, Columbine school shootings, the Iraq war, Oklahoma City bombing, and countless other news stories. Way too many to list here in a blog post. I’ve watched Fox News since the beginning, so we went through many news stories together.
So it does pain me to realize that cable news is over. Well, at least as I know it. I no longer need to sit in my living room waiting for “breaking news” or get the daily news from an anchor or show host.
At 20 million views this video would’ve been the 13th most watched show on TV last year. Cable news is dead. https://t.co/pnlFx5AcDR
— Florida Dad (@FloridadadD) May 10, 2023
Now we have all the social media networks that have grown, adapted and changed throughout the last decade. Social media apps that we carry with us 24 hours in our pockets thanks to the invention of the mobile device.
We no longer sit in our houses around the television set waiting. Instead, we go on about our business and have access to all sorts of news media. We have citizen journalists, bloggers, podcasters, and YouTubers. We have independent media like The Blaze and The Daily Wire. We have big news anchors like Megyn Kelly (and now) Tucker Carlson striking out alone.
Dinosaurs
This afternoon, I heard Hannity expounding about how Ron DeSantis may announce his presidential run this coming three-day Memorial Day weekend. Hannity said it would not be a good time for the announcement, with it being a three-day weekend, that no one would be around during the holiday weekend.
Hannity, this isn’t 1980 anymore. The news comes to us wherever we are nowadays. We don’t have to arrange to be at home for a Saturday primetime announcement. If we are out of town, on holiday, or with friends and family at a cookout, we will find out if DeSantis announces it without viewing it on television.
How old are the Murdochs again? Just look at the Fox News Board of Directors, and you’ll know why cable news is dying.
Feature image: Made in Canva Pro
