How Cable TV Shaped Our Viewing Habits, Industries – and Identities

KQED's Forum

KQED

News Commentary, News, Politics

4.2 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 2 February 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

More and more TV households are cutting the cord and moving to streaming. In 2023 alone, pay-TV providers lost more than 5 million subscribers. But now that streaming companies have a robust subscriber base, rates are rising and commercials are making their way back into programming. Historian Kathryn Cramer Brownell says that when cable companies tried similar tactics in the 1980s, the government stepped in to protect consumers. So why hasn’t that happened with streaming? We’ll take a look at the history of cable with Brownell to understand how the cable tv model set the foundation for our current media landscape and what consumers can do about it. Guest: Kathryn Cramer Brownell, associate professor, Purdue University - author of “24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Support for KQED podcasts comes from San Francisco International Airport.
0:05.3	You can fly back in time and visit SFO's Aviation Museum and Library to learn about the history of commercial aviation.
0:12.2	No boarding pass needed. Learn more at flysafo.com slash museum.
0:17.0	Support for forum comes from Broadway SF, presenting Parade, the musical revival based on a true story.
0:24.8	From three-time Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown comes the story of Leo and Lucille Frank,
0:31.2	a newlywed Jewish couple struggling to make a life in Georgia. When Leo is accused of an
0:36.9	unspeakable crime, it propels them into an
0:39.7	unimaginable test of faith, humanity, justice, and devotion. The riveting and gloriously hopeful
0:47.1	parade plays the Orpheum Theater for three weeks only, May 20th through June 8th. Tickets
0:53.6	on sale now at Broadwaysf.com.
0:58.0	From KQBD in San Francisco, this is Forum.
1:18.3	I'm Mina Kim.
1:19.7	2030 saw some of the biggest drops in cable TV subscriptions in a single quarter, according to the Washington Post.
1:27.0	And the industry that's
1:28.0	inspiring all that cord cutting, the streaming industry, is actually built on the same business model
1:33.7	that cable built decades ago, says Catherine Kramer Brownell, who writes about how paying for TV
1:39.5	subscriptions came to be, and a whole lot more in her book 24-7 politics, cable television and the
1:46.2	Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News. This hour will look at the role of cable TV
1:51.7	in shaping not only our viewing habits, but also our fragmented culture, and whether the rise
1:56.6	of streaming will mean more of the same. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
2:02.5	Streaming services may be gobbling up cable subscriptions, but the demand for
2:06.8	personalized programming that cable TV created and fueled is still alive and well, and at
	...

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