One-Way Media Lost the Election as Cable, Interactive Dominated

Barack Obama's historic campaign for the presidency rode the wave of a sea change in the way that consumers access, personalize and share news and information. That transformation was happening with or without the election, but the campaign activated millions of young people already accustomed to consuming media in different ways. The winners were the ones that fed the public's desire for news where and when they wanted it: 24-hour cable TV news; participatory blogs that aggregate news of a political bent; websites that allow users to access media on their own terms (YouTube) and those that allow users to communicate and organize with each other (Facebook). Losers were the one-way media of the past: While the broadcast networks weren't without their moments, they were more marginal than four years ago. Network prime time, bereft of new hits and attempting to appeal to a distracted population, was down by double digits this fall.