Tom Madden on Future of Television

OurBlook interview with Tom Madden, creator of just-launched ShopLaughing.com.

What do you see as the future for the once-dominant Big Three network news operations ... NBC, CBS, ABC? Will they be going through the same painful transition newspapers are? Is it good or bad for America that while still influential, they have been losing viewers?

TM: It's reminiscent of the '50s classic sci-fi film "The Incredible Shrinking Man." Today it's The Incredible Shrinking once-upon-a-time Oligopoly called Network News. Sadly, they are following dinosaur newspapers into a brave new fragmented, web-driven world where fact, opinion, entertainment and marketing blur and each news operation shares a smaller and smaller piece of the economic pie, hence news operations will generally shrink and morph into fresh, more practical online formats.

Actually, it's not as bad as it sounds, as today serious news consumers can find information from an ever widening array of sources and viewpoints and it's all readily available 24/7 and as close by as our iPods and maybe eventually from chips in their brains, one for sports, politics, entertainment, liberal, conservative, etc. Consumers will become the new editors and programmers. The problem is, Americans are going to have a more difficult time talking to one another without shouting as the once community-building local newspaper that brought us together will become a thing of the past.

What do you see as the future for CNN?

TM: Just like the airlines, news media have to merge to survive. CNN will merge with CBS, which will produce efficiencies and save the 24-news cycle from extinction. Television network news in a traditional sense is an endangered species. And the only way to survive is to marry and remain faithful to your principles.

What do you see as the future for Fox News?

TM: Fox News will continue to dominate cable news as it has successfully blended information and entertainment and it consistently delivers what it knows so well what its audience wants. Instead of fair and balanced, I think Fox News is more fun and provocative. I happen to like Fox News because it's interesting, fast-faced and lively. But I can see why a whole other audience avoids it. The show I just created, Shop Laughing (www.shoplaughing.com), is to home shopping what Fox News is to news reporting. O'Reilly is basically an entertaining reporter and I see nothing wrong with injecting some fun and satire and almost comic exasperation into a so-called news program. Shop Laughing is where American Idol meets QVC and for the first time brings entertainment to the genre, which until now hasn't changed for many years.

What do you see as the future for specialty news programs such as 60 Minutes or 48 Hours?

TM: These programs function like specials that interrupt a night of sitcoms. They are dramatic forms of news that shock, amaze, anger and disgust. They are islands of drama in a sea of sameness, so they will endure. If not, they are headed for that uplifting but remote island resort of Public Television.

What do you see as the future for local TV news programs?

TM: Local TV is fast replacing the local newspaper. In news, the local angle has always ruled. Five hundred deaths far away are not equal to one nearby. It's human nature. We are localites. That's not to say local news won't expand and pamper its audience interactively on the Internet. But it's here to stay for a long while, only perhaps relying more and more on outside sources for content, like PR firms.

You have just launched shoplaughing, an online shopping and entertainment network. Tell us how it came about and what you hope it will accomplish.

TM: I believe we've created a new form that will change the face of home shopping. We are combining entertainment with shopping in a format that's fun and lively. The great Italian director Frederico Fellini would love our show as we have everything in it but Fred and Ginger. Not only are the hosts Dr. John Myers and Latino actress Laura Termini and announcer JP Hervis fun to watch, but the products are entertaining, too, like wallets you can only open with your fingerprint and my own invention, the Knife and Forklift, that combines dumbbells and utensils that allows you to exercise while eating.

What do you think of the fact that some Americans say they get their TV "news" from watching Jon Stewart?

TM: As someone who started his career as a newspaper reporter who took news seriously and endeavored to report it as fairly and accurately as possible, it bothers me that people are getting their basic news from comics. I have nothing against comedy. And I like to laugh as much as the next guy, but really, do we want comedians to be our main source of news?

A lot of news shows and channels now are enlisting viewer participation through submission of video feeds. Your thoughts on citizen journalism for TV?

TM: I admire it, although it makes me nervous a little, as it's almost an accuracy freefall. Who are the sources of the video? How fair and balanced are they? It's more spice than substance much of the time. I like it. I'm just skeptical, which is not a bad way to be these days about information.

We have a sports news channel in ESPN, an entertainment news channel in E, a couple business news channels, a weather news channel in the Weather Channel, and so on. Do you think there will be more proliferation in the future on cable ... like a foreign news channel for America, an environmental news channel, an automotive news channel, etc?

TM: Yes, I see more and more fragmentation of the spectrum, allowing entire networks devoted to certain content categories. At the rate we're going, there probably will be a network offering 24/7 news and information about men's ties.

Lots more Americans now are watching TV online via Hulu. What impact, if any, does that have on TV news and TV programming generally?

TM: There's only so many hours in the day, so any TV service such as Hulu, whether online or cable, involving TV viewing hours has the effect of diminishing available audience or reducing the size of the pie, so all news channels will then be competing for a smaller slice and that could put additional pressure on news operations for ratings.

Is there anything else you'd like to say about the future of television news?

TM: Yes, stay tuned and get to enjoy change as that's going to be more and more the breaking news about news.

TransMedia Group's founder and chairman, Thomas J. Madden, is a former VP, assistant to the president of NBC, then TV wunderkind Fred Silverman. Before that, he was director of PR at ABC. A graduate of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, he started as a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and is the author of "SPIN MAN" and other books and many articles on PR.