- Politics: decisions made by the players and institutions affect lives across the globe
- Business: similar to politics, the most generally important decisions are made in this sector
- Weather: the great local unifier, the universal conversation starter
The Lifecycle
It is a simple idea. For the most part, we all like simplicity. There are very few people who will come home from work and pour themselves over a good physiology textbook. We do not want to think about much. For most of us, the work day is when we have our brains zooming at full speed. At work is when we focus on business, politics and, for the conversation and commute plans, the weather. This is the time when we can try to wrap our minds around the socioeconomic consequences of the latest political actions or business regulation. The rest of the day needs to be filled with easily digestible forms of information. Enter sports and entertainment.
Think about the following two programs. The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and Sportscenter. The former is a news summary show on a respected news channel. The latter is a sports summary show on a respected sports channel. Notice anything? If you look at the two shows, Sportscenter comes across as a highly stylized, well paced show. While The Situation Room may also have these characteristics, it lacks the constant structure. Watch Sportscenter for a week and you will know exactly what to expect. You know you will get the best highlights first from the most important games, you will get reports from other important events, as the show progresses you will be told what to look for in the coming days. The Situation Room does not have the benefit of covering a static topic. They are forced to adapt their show to what happens that day. The difference grows out of the difference between lifecycles. The news cycle is never ending. The sports cycle, and, to a lesser degree, the entertainment cycle has a well known and expected cycle.
Step 1: Tell Us What You Are Going to Show Us
Step 2: Show Us
Step 3: Tell Us What You Showed Us
Sportscenter, First Take, Mike and Mike in the Morning, SportsNation, Around the Horn, Pardon the Interruption, Sportscenter again. This is what you will find on the worldwide leader in sports (ESPN) on a daily basis. These shows have two primary functions 1.) recap the events from the previous night (covered later) 2.) build excitement for the day's action. It is a constant balancing act for all sports shows. They must properly cover the important details form the night before, but they cannot ignore the present day. If they tip towards either direction they risk losing an audience who looks forward to pregame news or risk losing the audience who looks forward to post-game coverage. It is in the best interest of the entire cycle to present both.
What this provides is a guide for the public as to how to follow sports. They will construct a basis for what you should be focused on for the day. If you simply stay on this track, you can be in the "know". This also creates a self contained audience. Show interest one day, get excited about an event, watch event, go back the next day for more coverage, hear about the next exciting event, repeat. It is just that simple to follow.
The entertainment cycle works the same way. Think about the upcoming Oscars presentation. For weeks we will hear about what to look for, the day of the ceremony we will follow limitless coverage from the red carpet, we will then watch the event, later in the night or the next day you will watch or read a recap and look for analysis. The packaging is slick.
CNBC attempts the same model for business news. It comes closest simply because what they follow most is the stock market. The stock market gives the network a structure, much like sporting events give ESPN a structure and movie premieres/TV shows/ceremonies give E! a structure. CNBC is forced to be short handed, however, because of a few things. One crucial element is that while the US market is a static, timed market which falls into a nice set period, they must also focus on international markets. Investors are concerned with how the Asian market will effect their own investments. How will the DAX results be interpreted in the S&P? In an increasingly global landscape, CNBC cannot ignore these factors. The other factor working against the network is complexity. We all understand movies. ESPN does not have to worry if the audience will understand the basketball highlight. CNBC must be constantly aware of this fact. Business and finance are only becoming more complex and this will continue to hamper the lifecylce for business and finance. It becomes more difficult to put the topic in a neat box.
Similar points can be made about politics or news in general. Additionally, there are no set schedules for these topics. One day you will see an important announcement at a mid morning conference in Boston. The next crucial bit of information could come around dusk in San Francisco. Most issues within these categories are also more difficult to "score". In sports we have the easiest winner/loser distinction. Entertainment is usually rated and judged. Political and business decisions usually take time to play out. This is one of the reasons why the public is more interested in politics around the election period. It gives us a winners and losers. We can get this. We can consume it easier. The box is neater.
How can you tell that these things are true? Maybe we just like sports for simpler reasons. Maybe we all just like movies. Surely this is a major factor, but think about this. What was the last foreign film you saw? Do you regularly watch any British television shows? How closely do you follow La Liga (the Spanish Soccer League)? A critically acclaimed foreign film will not get much traction here. British shows must be adapted to US television. The rest of the world loves soccer, but we stay away. It is not the actual product, but the packaging. It is much more difficult to put foreign consumables into our system.
The Australian Open tennis tournament was shown on ESPN, the experts of packaging. Even they could not convince us to watch. Why? Because the matches fell into a strange time slot. We choose not to watch simply because of this fact. Other similar tennis tournaments featuring the same competitors will draw higher rating. Take the product out of the cycle and we lost interest. It becomes more difficult to follow. We do not want to have to try to follow entertainment or sports.
