Monday, August 02, 2010

A Nation Electrified

David Akin writes a interesting blog today on social media. One of the statistics he provides is a bit surprising, and offers further proof that nobody outside of die hard junkies are paying attention, most of the "debate" nothing more than a marginal, esoteric dance, with little real world resonance:
The average audience for the all-news channels of CBC and CTV can drop as low as 15,000 and rarely gets much above 50,000 at any point during a regular news day.

Ratings that give new meaning to the word anemic. Between 30 to 100 thousand watching the news channels, represents around 1 to 300 viewers per riding. Pretty pathetic when you think about it, and a partial explanation why politicians of the day can operate with virtual impunity. These numbers also undermine the justification for a third news network, no matter the LAME arguments, but that's a side point.

You know when you watching Pierre Poilievre do the low brow routine on a political panel and you want to give him an atomic wedgie? Take comfort in the fact that NOBODY is really watching, NOBODY really gives a toss, it all takes place within a bubble that elevates the relative nothingness, to something resembling meaning. Only rarely does any "issue" penetrate beyond diehards like myself, which is why it becomes extraordinarily difficult to predict what is resonating and what is useless noise, solely for our own narrow digestion (like this blog for instance).

1 comment:

Jerry Prager said...

Except those broadcast stories are linked online, and that way a Polliverian audience is being reached, or rather a larger audience is reaching in and plucking links to what they individually, and in common cause find valuable from broadcast.