Is Live Media Dead?

When I was a kid Brent Mussberger ruled my Sundays. From the time I was five years old, I was hooked on The NFL Today on CBS. I used to love Mussberger's opening line: "You're looking live at..." (insert stadium here). You really felt like you were there - even though there were lots of "there's" and they were thousands of miles from Long Island.

There were lots of great sports and moments I saw live on TV when I was a kid. The Drive. The Buckner Ball. The Berlin Wall. It was a badge of honor to have seen event live - either on TV or, even better, in person. The older you are, the more events I bet you're proud to say saw live on TV. But something is happening. Live might be dead. It doesn't feel the same way it used to

Thanks to advances in digital technology we don't have the same need to see events live the way we once did. We're too busy. And we have lots of tools to time and place shift these events. We have DVRs, Slingboxes, podcasts and RSS. Sure, there are exceptions. Millions watched when Taylor Hicks was crowned American Idol. We still gather to watch the World Cup or the Super Bowl live. But these are communal experiences. They're more rare these days.

Have you noticed there aren't as many "Who Shot JR?" moments anymore? The world doesn't stop for live events the way it used to. So maybe "live" is dying?

Comments

[hubert]

To be fair: the "Who Shot JR?" moments of massive synchronous watching (AKA insanely high audience shares) have always been the exception.

But the time and place shifting devices, as they slowly penetrate household all over the globe, will essentially drive the top tier broadcasters to go after live EVENTS as their defining programming structure.

Live ain't dead. Because time shifting a game is really lame.

[Mack Collier]

For sporting events, it's only gotten better. In the 80s you would be lucky to see 15-25% of the games your favorite team played. Today, you can literally see every game any team plays.

"Have you noticed there aren't as many "Who Shot JR?" moments anymore?"

This is because there are so many more channels now, the audience has become incredibly fragmented.

[John Wall]

We don't see "Who shot J.R.?" moments because I think Dallas isn't on TV anymore...