(7 of 7)
The networks, not surprisingly, are making optimistic projections. At CBS, Poltrack is preparing a report for his bosses forecasting what the TV world will be like in the year 1995. It predicts that network shares will stabilize at 63% to 65% and contends that cable's inroads are peaking. NBC president Robert Wright argues that the networks' problems are being overstated compared with those of competitors. "There is more frustration on the small end of the scale," he says. "It is scary, for example, for niche services like the Discovery Channel. They may already have 100% of their audience."
Such predictions may be self-serving. But this is, after all, a TV drama, so let's give it a happy ending. The networks will live on -- chastened and less powerful, perhaps, but still the main providers of news and entertainment for the mass audience. Although the explosion of new video choices has been a boon for viewers, the Big Three still serve a unique and important function: providing a communal link, a source of shared experiences, a finger on the nation's pulse. Network shows are the ones we watch together and talk about at work the next morning -- not just presidential debates and space-shuttle disasters but the Academy Awards and Johnny Carson's monologue and Thursday night's Cosby Show. The networks will survive because we need them.
Or is that just another prime-time fantasy?