MASS UNAPPEAL

posted by James Reel

Douglas McLennan’s recent blog post on the failings of CNN and other cable news purveyors leads to a comment on where newspapers have gone wrong:

Rather than attract a hipper younger audience, they alienated their core readers and failed to get the kids as well. In our increasingly nichefying world, using mass-culture strategies to get bigger audiences works against you. A proliferation of sources means that people can be pickier to get exactly what they want, and general bland multi-purpose content has less and less appeal. A lesson for anyone competing for an audience these days.

It’s also a lesson, I might add, for public broadcasting. You can find the full post here.