Day: April 13, 2014

Nobody has published a report expressing just how much international money has been spent on locating flight 370. Nielsen published a report about the number of people who watched the news on April 10th. Once again, FOX more than doubled the number of viewers that CNN had that night. The last time CNN broke the 1/2 as populous margin was when they first began airing the Flight 370 drama. I’m taking you back to the original ‘This is a CRISIS’ graphic, not the more recent, ‘We’ll find this thing if it kills us’ graphic. People were interested. Not all people, but the people that actually spend time watching cable news. What’s important to note about that is the people who generally watch cable news are the ones who are drawn to the kind of news that reinforces their world view, i.e. the Fox News set.

Back in November of 12, CNN awoke to a full blown crisis. Their numbers showed a 15-month low as they averaged 385, 000 total viewers in the Monday-Friday prime slot, only 95,000 of which were adults in the 25-54 demo. CNN must’ve realized that things were not working. Adults above 54 long supported FOX and showed no signs of wanting to change (as is indicative of the age group), so the real prize was and continues to be the 25-54 demographic… Or is it? The fundamental problem that CNN faces is a shifting landscape of news access. Younger people are going online to get their news and many older folks are following suit. Add to that the number of options available to get news that is, well, not like FOX and you are looking at a fight over a shrinking market with a sizable number of competitors. All of this brings us to flight 370.

When the flight first disappeared people of all demographics were keenly interested. They couldn’t get in depth coverage of the story from other outlets because other outlets truly didn’t realize the impact the story would have. It was a budding conspiracy theory–Amelia Earhart for the modern day. CNN ran the story like crazy, and because there wasn’t many other options to get the story from, the CNN ratings soared… For a moment.

Here’s the deal: Americans have developed an extremely short attention span. We are over the story. Some of us aren’t, but that major number bump disappeared, proving that the missing plane didn’t matter. It was merely another distraction; a Macguffin to keep our eyes glued to the TV until the next shiny object arrived. It wasn’t even a human interest piece. In truth, very little attention has been paid to people who (more than likely) died on the plane except for in conspiratorial tones. It wasn’t about that at all.

It was about ratings and now those ratings are gone, baby, gone.

Only CNN doesn’t seem to realize that yet.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. If you needed any more evidence that Florida is all fracked up, try this attack on for size. The best part is the kid in the Hollister shirt who says, “I’m really surprised. I didn’t think a bear would ever attack anybody.” Seriously, dude? To quote a friend,  “Are you new?”

It feels like fragility is a fundamental part of the human condition; as though once you gain the capacity to verbally express emotion you also gain the understanding that you have the power to shake the emotions of others. Emotions are tied up in everything we do. This is especially true of perception. We learn see people in one way, be it through repeated exposure or basic stereotyping. When a person doesn’t behave in a fashion that we’ve come to expect, we tend to instantly become defensive and afraid.

Are we not allowed to change our minds? Can’t we evolve? Inevitably it creates a singular presumption in the human mind:  You cannot tell people how you really feel. On the one hand honesty helps us understand how we come across to others. On the other hand, honesty hurts and is often misinterpreted as an attack. Suddenly the truth is a very bad thing. It is a losing bet whose outcome is destined to weaken your position. So you learn to avoid conversations. You embrace compromise and you settle for the cold silence of unspoken thoughts.

Maybe it isn’t that people don’t want to change but that people realize how hard changing is, so they work equally hard to hold on to the memory of what was, working backwards to capture a moment they can never catch–one that has already passed. Changing is hard work, and once you admit that others can do it you have to admit that you can do it yourself. Therefore it is far easier, at times, to spend your energy accepting that people change all the time and you too must change and grow as a result. Changing means leaving your comfort zone, but not changing means that comfort zone is built on an ever shifting foundation and it won’t belong before that foundation crumbles.