By: Michaela Wilson
There I am, a 15-year-old girl, sitting in front of 20 people I met not even a month ago, about to star in my first newscast as an anchor for my high school’s morning news show. God, I hated being in front of the camera, however, lucky for me that was the day my film teacher thought it would be a good idea to get me out of my comfort zone.
The teleprompter started to roll, and I realized there was no way out of this but through. Before I knew it, the dread I had for being on camera turned into love. This was when I knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my life.
Sitting here now, five years later as a junior in college, my dream of entering the broadcast field has now been joined by worry. With social media making the world more connected than ever, citizen journalism is on the rise, slowly pushing out broadcast journalism as the go-to platform for news consumption.
Political opinions, current events and breaking news saturate social media feeds, changing the way information is being spread. It seems like everyone has something to report and the reliability of those posts are never questioned. In a study done by Pew Research Center, the role of social media is growing rapidly in news consumption, with about one in every four 15 to 29-year-olds relying upon it for their daily news.
With those numbers, from 2016 to 2022, one million viewers turned away from the traditional nightly newscasts of ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. At this rate of decline, by 2034 the number of broadcast viewers could dip under 2 million, which is less than the entire population of Chicago.
The newer generations seem to want to scroll through X for five minutes to see what is happening rather than tune in to nightly newscasts. This is most likely because social media allows them to find out breaking news in real time rather than having to tune in at 5 p.m. to see what happened hours prior. If convenience and timeliness is a driving factor for the upcoming generations, how can broadcast make sure it does not become obsolete?
To try to keep up with the new ways of information spreading, news outlets need to shift to a more everywhere-free and ad-supported format. Large media live streaming and feeds on social media are needed to engage with the millions of viewers they lost in the last six years. Content is no longer sought out by people, they just expect news and stories to follow them.
Brands like NBC, ABC and even Fox are slowly pushing their way into the TikTok market and seeing positive results. Almost every video reaches just under a million views, driving more traffic to their pages. If broadcast is struggling to keep those viewers and TikTok accumulates them on a good day, it is time for the industry to switch their ways from a slowly declining industry.
What does this make the future look like for broadcast media? Expansion to streaming services such as Apple TV and Roku TV stations are now in discussion, but will these platforms reach audiences in new ways? What is the difference in convenience between streaming services and cable?
If viewers are demanding a switch, the industry will and should follow. With that switch means do what we know works. Expanding to other platforms will allow viewers to listen and consume topics they are interested in. The realm of journalism is turning into a personalized experience and it is pushing out a generalized one. Social media is shaking up the game, gathering viewers ten times easier than broadcast news has been able to in years.
As an aspiring journalist entering this field in the coming years, my worries remain. What will my broadcasting dream look like? Is my future Tik Tok reporting? And will the conventional form of broadcast journalism that we have known for years ever be the same again?
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