But with 9/11, we found that people tended to come back to the networks and the people who had been our core viewers in the past came back and they have stayed with us.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
CNN will always be the channel people turn on when wars and horrible disasters happen. The 'trick' is getting people to also want to watch it when there aren't hundreds or thousands of people somewhere in the world currently in mortal peril.
Five or ten years ago, when it was clear the Internet was becoming a mainstream phenomenon, it was equally clear that a lot of people were being left out and could be left behind.
We all have very personal relationships to what happened on 9/11 and the events after tracking Osama bin Laden. Nobody can escape from the influence of that.
I'm saying that there's way more to 9/11 than mainstream media and our government have told us.
The networks found themselves having to compete for an increasingly Balkanized audience.
I doubt the terrorists saw 9/11 as a teaching opportunity. And we're not really a culture geared to anything as humble as 'learning.' But I was disappointed in how quickly everyone wanted to get back to normal. It was as if we watched terrorism on TV for a while, then got bored and turned back to 'American Idol.'
But the point is to get a whole new generation of people and people in general more re-engaged in news, and this has happened a lot since September 11th of course.
After 9/11 and the impending actors' strike of a few years ago, roles dried up for everyone.
You know, people aren't watching a network: they're watching cable channels.
By 2007, we were finally living in a culture where people get what networks are and what technology can do to connect people.