Internet threatens Europe TV news channels
Press TV – October 8, 2009
Despite a surge in the number of European television news networks, the industry feels threatened as its audience has found the Internet a more palatable news source.
The latest survey revealed at the yearly business exhibition of the France-based MIPCOM, an international film and program market for television, video, cable and satellite, shows that Europe's news broadcasting industry may suffer owing to the growing popularity of the World Wide Web.
The number of TV and satellite news channels has doubled to over 160 national and international news channels through the digitization of networks over the past five years in Europe.
However, European audiovisual news dissemination sector has already suffered due to increasing costs and diminishing audience, director of markets and financing at the European Audiovisual Observatory, Andre Lange, said on Wednesday.
The study indicates that half of the smaller media groups reported deficits in 2008 and 2009.
The recent finding identifies the multiplication of news outlets through modern means of news diffusion such as cell phones and the Internet as the main contributors to the 'fierce' competition in media market.
It also demonstrates a tendency on the part of smaller news broadcasters to incorporate into larger ones in order to survive looming bankruptcies powered by fading advertisement revenues.
"In certain countries such as Germany and Denmark, advertising on the Internet is starting to overtake TV advertising even if television audiences remain much higher than Internet audiences," AFP quoted Lang as saying.
"We can expect some channels to go bust in the next few years," he went on to say.
TV news channels face an uphill battle to remain financially afloat as more viewers opt for the Internet in order to find news of their interests published by newspapers and the so-called 'citizen journalists' that also use audiovisual means of publishing information.
GHN/AKM
Source: http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=108137&ionid=3510208
Last updated 10/10/2009