CNN and Fox Sightings

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Rupert Murdoch is not worried about his rival the internet. If it kills television networks, 
he'll just buy Twitter, when Elon Musk is ready to off-load it.

It’s stale news that CNN let Don Lemon go, and Fox, Tucker Carlson. What has been simmering for a while but has not been discussed by panels on television networks, is their future. Are those chairs and make-up artists secure?

Once upon a time, owning TV stations and newspapers used to be like a license to print money. Ask Rupert Murdoch, Tucker Carlson’s former boss. He owns almost all of them. Television news cannot take viewers for granted anymore because of a little logo that looks like a bird.  Twitter sends us breaking news every minute 24/7 and Tik Tok and YouTube Shorts flood us with good and bad news, as they happen.

That is why we are discussing dormant volcanoes. The issue is not Don Lemon and Tucker Carlson but the lava inside. What is the future of CNN, Fox and other media giants when anybody who has a phone or laptop can have a news channel?

Will we erect tombstones for them like recording companies? Many young musicians no longer spend sleepless nights dreaming about the record deal. They make money on YouTube and don’t share it with recording studios. The record deal was not for everyone in the first place. Many were called, but few were chosen.

CNN, Fox and the whole broadcasting industry go through defections everyday. We don’t rush home for the 6 or 7 o’clock news because we get the news sitting in a packed subway train, bus, or stuck in traffic. Television and broadcast news in particular was also tied to family cohesion. That is gone. Each to his or her phone. Will the internet obliterate television? Ask Rupert Murdoch.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

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