Last Monday, I began my week with a mission. As much time as has been spent on the Spark criticizing local media coverage, our local television news on WSPA News Channel 7 has gotten precious little attention. At first it seemed odd to me that that would be the case, and I spent a good deal of time thinking about it. What I came up with in the end was that we here at the Spark deal in a world of words.
Those words may now more often than not be digital representations on an illuminated screen rather than ink on wood pulp but either way, they’re still words. So even though on the surface ignoring the local television news coverage may seem like some sort of glaring omission in the Spark’s coverage, from a certain point of view it makes sense that the local television news coverage would’ve largely flown under our radar up to now.
So it was with all those things in mind that I decided to watch a week of News Channel 7′s local news coverage.
I should say at the outset that I’m probably the last person who should have ever volunteered to watch a whole week of local news. I’m the sort of guy who’d much rather bury himself in a 5000 word article in the New Yorker than watch 30 minutes of local coverage on car crashes, shootings, stabbings, and sensationalized criminal trials. A lot of people know the old rule of thumb about television news: “If it bleeds, it leadsâ€. Less popular though, is the other half of that rule: “If it thinks, it stinksâ€. That’s always been my problem with local news. Generally, it plays to our most voyeuristic and base instincts. Local television news often serves little purpose other than to provide us all a chance to gawk at the misfortune of others, and any useful information gleamed from watching is entirely incidental.
Needless to say, I wasn’t looking forward to the week ahead and not being content with suffering alone, on Monday I posted a challenge over on the forum to attempt to get some of the Spark’s readers to take the local news challenge with me. My results were decidedly underwhelming, and the few responses I got were from people opting out, or starting and failing. The local news challenge was such a dismal failure in fact, that if in the future anyone ever has the audacity to accuse me of being an influential member of the community here in Spartanburg, I’ll promptly point to the local news challenge thread in the Spark’s forum as evidence that I can’t even motivate people to sit down in front of their televisions for 30 minutes. I’m so stung by the experience, it surprises me when my dog still comes when I call him.
Even though the forum local news challenge was a failure, I still had a week’s worth of local news to watch. So with my netbook on my lap for taking notes, I turned on the TV Monday at 5 PM for my first installment of WSPA’s local news coverage.
For my first evening of local news, I decided to watch the entire hour and half of coverage from 5 to 6:30 PM. That plan was good; unfortunately I only managed to make it to about 5:40 or so before I fell asleep on the couch from a combination of boredom and the lack of my afternoon cup of coffee. Before I dozed off though I caught what at first seemed like an interesting lead story at 5:30 about North Carolina parolees committing crimes in South Carolina. The story only referenced two parolees, both of whom committed crimes in Cherokee County, one of whom was the now infamous Gaffney serial killer Patrick Burris, and that’s when it hit me that this supposed story was really just an excuse to bring up the serial killer story again.
The two men referenced in the story had no connection to each other, and the fact that they both were on parole in North Carolina when they happened to commit crimes in an area of South Carolina less than 30 minutes from the North Carolina state line is an obvious coincidence. This story didn’t expose some gaping hole in the North Carolina judicial system. It simply used an incidental connection to get more mileage out of the already throughly covered serial killer story.
The other thing I noticed about the 5 and 5:30 editions of the local evening news is that in addition to telling the news not quite good enough for the 6 o’clock block, they also serve as teasers for what’s coming up at 6. In fact, a disturbing amount of air time during the first hour of evening coverage is devoted to promoting the news at 6; which in turn uses a significant portion of its time to promote the news at 11. It’s almost like watching an infomercial with commercial breaks.
I’d like to be able to say that things got better as the week progressed, but they didn’t. I tried watching at 6 and at noon, but no matter what time you tune in, it’s pretty much the same thing: something sexy or bloody in the lead, a pseudo-deep investigative report about something relating to sex, children, or violent crime in the middle, and then weather and sports. Finally, we go out with some puff piece pulled down from the national network about a dog that saved a guy’s life by dialing 911 when the house was on fire or something equally heartwarming and meaningless. I didn’t need a week to figure this stuff out. I could’ve wrapped it up in an afternoon.
When it was all over, I finished out my week with pretty much the same ideas about local television news coverage that I started the week with—albeit articulated a little better. That isn’t to say that I didn’t learn a few things or develop new ideas. For example, I’m now thoroughly convinced that weather and sports are scheduled towards the end of each 30 minute block because if they were scheduled in the beginning of the block half the audience would change the channel before the half-hour was over. I’d never really bothered to give it that much thought before last week. That’s something I suppose.
The problem with our local television newscast is that it simply doesn’t report much actual news. News is something that affects people’s everyday lives. Accidents out on the interstate are tragic, but they’re not news. Criminal child neglect trials are heartbreaking, but they’re not news. A stabbing in a convenience store is frightening, but it’s not news. If you disagree with that, you should ask yourself how any of those stories will affect you, me, or society in any way. These are personal tragedies and to the people directly involved, they are very important. To the rest of us though, these so-called news stories won’t make any impact on our lives one way or the other.
I know that may come across as a little cynical. Before you dismiss me as cold and unfeeling though you should ask yourself what’s more cynical, the guy who says that these stories of personal tragedy aren’t news, or the news agency that—under the guise of being informative—exploits people’s voyeuristic impulses for its own private gain?
The biggest problem with our local television news is that there’s actually plenty of news out there, but most of it would require lifting the audience up and educating them to the things that really do matter in their lives instead of talking down to them as though they’re caged animals only interested in sex or gore. The real stories out there aren’t likely to make for the best visuals, but they would provide the public with information they really need to better their own communities, and while that’s not exactly sexy or glamorous, it is what journalism is supposed to be about.
Christopher George
I must admit that while I totally supported this idea, I couldn’t even muster the enthusiasm to watch a single second of TV news this week. In my own defense, however, I’d like to point out that I stopped watching TV some time ago, and that I haven’t watched the TV news in years for the exact reasons Chris points out.
I took the challenge but never followed up on the forum by posting. I have to admit that I did skip the night where they were going to show the pics of the malnourished kids because, quite frankly, I can’t handle those kinds of pictures. I have a hard time making it all the way through the entire newscast- generally, I am too tempted to flip it over to MSNBC or something that isn’t a rehash of the same old story.
Showing those photos of the malnourished boys was gratuitous in my opinion. No public interest was served in that, just another way to drum up ratings.
Oh Chris….as I take a personal/professional risk to reply to this story….and keeping my 1st amendment rights in mind….what your article seems to not recognize is that local TV news is not journalism as much as it is a way to make money. Advertisers want to see ratings. They need to access as many people as possible. Local news needs local advertisers. It’s a business after all. Check out the “most clicked on” stories on any local news website and you will see that the bloody ones get a gazillion times (yes, that’s a technical term) more action than the educational ones. Sooooo…..the bloody, tragic or heartbreaking stories get covered, people (no not you, but lots of other people) tune in, advertisers buy airtime….
And I get a paycheck every two weeks.
Actually, my article does recognize that local TV news isn’t journalism as much as it is a way to make money. In fact, that’s kind of my central argument. I know very well what the “business” of journalism entails, and frankly that’s the biggest problem
Any idiot can see that certain stories get more viewers or page views. For example, every time I type the name “Mark Sanford” in one of my columns the page views go through the roof, and the imaginary Steve Shanafelt that lives in my head swims around in a pool filled with hundred dollar bills.
On the other hand, every time I type the words “land use” everybody falls asleep, and the imaginary Steve Shanafelt that lives in my head turns his empty pants pockets inside out and starts crying.
It’s kind of a broader subject really, but TV news shouldn’t be just about making money. The profit motive has completely swallowed up the original mission of the Fourth Estate.
Think about it; journalism is the only profession specifically protected by the Constitution. Why is that? It’s simple really. The Framers new that the success or failure of popular government rested primarily on the people’s right to freely exchange ideas. That was the press’s original purpose, to facilitate that exchange. Somewhere along the way though, we figured out that appealing to the lowest common denominator was the cheapest and easiest way to make a buck.
Of course people like gossip stories. At an instinctive level, everyone’s a voyeur. The problem is that journalism isn’t supposed to be about that. It’s supposed to be more high-minded. If it were, then maybe we wouldn’t have 57% of Americans unable to name ONE Supreme Court Justice, or maybe we wouldn’t have half of all Americans unable to identify their Congressional Representative, with 86% being unable to identify ONE piece of legislation their Representative supported. This is a failure of media at every level, and local TV news isn’t exempt. In fact, it may even be more culpable than print because it uses the public airwaves.
Boring arguments over land use matter more to people’s lives than a stabbing in a MiniMart, and arguments about advertisers and and ratings come across as weak sauce compared with the press’s true purpose as the main source of information to ensure that ours is a vibrant democracy.
In short, it shouldn’t matter that bloody, tragic stories are more popular. Journalists shouldn’t be engaged in popularity contests. Their role in our society is too important for that.
“For example, every time I type the name “Mark Sanford†in one of my columns the page views go through the roof, and the imaginary Steve Shanafelt that lives in my head swims around in a pool filled with hundred dollar bills.”
Pretty close: This site makes literally dozens of nickels each time you write about Sanford.
“In short, it shouldn’t matter that bloody, tragic stories are more popular. Journalists shouldn’t be engaged in popularity contests. Their role in our society is too important for that.”
Oh you’re so idealistic and I’m so jaded. You’re right. It just isn’t that way.
Hooray for Bloggers and Journalists on the Internet…and intelligent people who can find and interpret their own news reports without having to rely on Corporate America to feed it to us.
That’s as true in print as it is on TV: Shallow sells. You’ll notice in the extreme that supermarket tabloids — which only have the most tenuous connection to anything one could call “reporting,” much less actual journalism — are weathering the current death-to-print storm much better than their hard-news equivalents.
But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a market for hard news, just that large corporations trying to make the most money they can while spending as little as possible generally aren’t motivated to put that as their highest priority. The trick is finding people who are into the reporting as its own mission, and are aiming for sustainability rather than a big profit margin.
But with even a humble budget, we could have an in-depth daily local news vlog that would address the concerns Chris is talking about. It might even be able to make a little money, or at least break even. But it’s absurd to expect TV news to do this, because they’re casting the broadest possible net and have totally different goals in mind.
For an example, check out The Global Report, which began life as the weekly Asheville Global Report, and is now a multimedia vlog/ blog/ cable TV show/ website. http://www.theglobalreport.org/
All in all, I’d love to come up with some “bat-boy and bigfoot spotted at waffle house in Boiling Springs” type stories. Can I? May I? Please please please!
or something like.. “County Council strikes down proposal for anarchy in Spartanburg.” A council member was quoted under terms of anonymity as saying, “We’d have to get real jobs, and stuff. That would suck.” shortly before speeding off in her Mazda Miata.
I guess my two cents are simply that entertainment has value, and in the medium of television, entertainment is expected. The example I would propose is to ask how often the average person watches boring ol’ C-span? ..relatively.
There’s a good book I read called, “Amusing Ourselves to Death” about just this. I wrote a sort of summary of it, as I sometimes do with books that jog my mind sometimes. It’s real short and to the point though, interesting:
http://chang.newsvine.com/_news/2006/08/28/342833-the-history-of-public-discourse
It says that since the telegraph in late 1840′s trivial information has muddied up the works, ..before that, people actually read with a passion because it was their window to the world. It provided their worldview much like how TV does these days for the majority of folks, simply because it’s our most universal, and commonplace window to the world.
I guess the easier it is to get information, the more triviality there has to be. Reminds me of Terrence McKenna’s timewave zero novelty for 2012, good youtube/wiki/google search if you guys haven’t heard of it.
(slaps myself) – I think TV news being more entertainment, and even news in general going the lowbrow road, is just a downside of the information age. The upside is, for those of us who are interested, we can hop online and get more then a headline and a soundbite, or even document the news ourselves, like yourselves. I think most people have been conditioned to be complacent, cultural toxicity and all. Damn Freud and his stinking nephew!!
We could totally do this. In fact, my old haunt, the Mountain Xpress has a weekly, one-page local news parody publication in the style of the Onion that’s very popular. All it would take is to set up a fake news blog and link to the stories like I would for the SH-J.
Check it out: http://www.mountainx.com/disclaimer/
I’m down. My abstract wheels are a churning, I’ll set up a new blog and shoot it your way so you can let me know what ya think.
Just make sure it’s completely clear that what you’re doing is parody and satire, which is protected speech. Mark it as clearly as possible so that you reduce the chance of lawsuits and stuff. The last thing you want is to have to go to court for a judge or jury to decide whether or not a reasonable person would know if it was supposed to be a joke.
As a reporter for WSPA, I read this blog post with great interest!
All of us newspeople would love to report on substantial weighty topics nightly. And often we do. And if you watch past the lead story, there is more coverage of schools, health, consumer, politics etc.
We are the only station with a capital reporter, and we lead the market with On Your Side advocacy journalism.
However, our job is to LEAD the newscast with what is happening RIGHT NOW.
And what is happening NOW…is often crime, fires, murders, bad weather etc. Not a girl scout bake sale for charity. That belongs later in the newscast.
Furthermore, our job is also to lead with what people are TALKING ABOUT. Or what they will be talking about tomorrow.
And 9 out of 10 times, they are talking about something juicy.
You made note of the coverage of car accidents: Think about it… When there is an accident… Traffic is backed up for miles, as thousands of people turn their heads and slow down to see what’s happened.
About 3 residents show up for the average city council meeting.
Again, our job is to show people what they are interested in hearing about.
*Although*, there has long been the other argument that journalists should give consumers what they SHOULD care about. Such as more politics, schools and government coverage. But that’s a bigger debate.
Keep the comments coming… I love hearing the opinions of viewers!
My opinions here are not the opinions of WSPA, but my own.
Jonathan
Thanks so much for commenting Jonathan. Good to get the perspective from a reporter for WSPA.
“All of us newspeople would love to report on substantial weighty topics nightly. And often we do. And if you watch past the lead story, there is more coverage of schools, health, consumer, politics etc.”
I did watch past the lead. The whole premise of this article was that for a week I dedicated myself to watching at least one complete 30 minute block of your network’s news coverage. I didn’t really see much coverage that I’d call “in depth”. I saw a few stories masquerading as “in depth”, but really they were just over-hyped shallow stories designed to play on the usual crime, sex, or violence themes. My main example of this sort of false depth was the “Is There A Problem with the Parole System in North Carolina?” story that ran on Monday of last week. Which as I wrote in my OP wasn’t so much an in depth investigative report as it was cheap way to keep talking about the Gaffney serial killer.
“And what is happening NOW…is often crime, fires, murders, bad weather etc. Not a girl scout bake sale for charity. That belongs later in the newscast.”
This reads a bit like cheap shot, but I’ll let that go. I would ask though: Do fires, murders, and car crashes always happen right when the evening news is about to start? If they aren’t happening exactly at that time then your argument doesn’t hold that much watter does it?
“Furthermore, our job is also to lead with what people are TALKING ABOUT. Or what they will be talking about tomorrow.”
This is the old chicken vs. egg argument. You say you’re just trying to report what people will be talking about tomorrow, and I say people will be talking about whatever it is you’re reporting. Unless those people happen to be my friends. I can’t remember the last time I had a conversation with someone about a fire, murder, or car accident out on Interstate 26, but I’m sure there are people who eat that kind of thing up.
I think the argument you’ve presented in this quote is a cheap way of passing the buck without taking responsibility for your own journalistic inaction.
“You made note of the coverage of car accidents: Think about it… When there is an accident… Traffic is backed up for miles, as thousands of people turn their heads and slow down to see what’s happened.
About 3 residents show up for the average city council meeting.”
Of course when there’s a traffic accident on the interstate traffic is backed up, but why is that a reason for your network to cover it at the expense of REAL stories? It’s not as though it’s some sort of public service, unless you think people driving down the interstate will somehow see your report and avoid the area. Surely you’re not trying to make that argument are you?
Actually as someone who’s been covering city council for the Spark, I can tell you that there’s actually about 20 to 30 residents who show up at any given council meeting. Generally, those people have some business on the agenda, but either way they’re residents.
Leaving aside your miscalculation for a second though, do you think maybe–just maybe–there would be more people at those city council meetings if you dropped just ONE of those accidents you cover every couple of weeks to say a few words about what goes on there? You know, like a journalist might?
“*Although*, there has long been the other argument that journalists should give consumers what they SHOULD care about. Such as more politics, schools and government coverage. But that’s a bigger debate.”
Actually, that’s exactly the debate I’ve been trying to stimulate with this article. I don’t think your job is to give people what they want. It makes perfect sense from a business point of view to do that, but as I wrote in my OP, journalism isn’t just any old business. Of course, other people differ with me on that but fortunately for me, the Constitution doesn’t.
I hope you’ll forgive me for writing this Jonathan, but the “we’re just giving the people what they want” line plays kind of weak with me. I realize that’s the way you see things, but it doesn’t speak very highly of your network as a legitimate source of information. Again though, thanks for giving us your thoughts on things.
No cheap shots intended…
My point was…certain stories are LEAD stories…others are not.
And often, most lead stories come across as bad or “sensational” news, because it is the “unexpected”…which is in fact was most hard news is. (ie: bad weather, fires, murders etc.).
As far as the car accidents..the point of my analogy was…more people want to see what happened with the car accident…than the city council meeting.
Thousands turn their heads to watch.
If thousands were interested in city government, thousands would show up and line the halls. The interest just isnt there.
I applaud the people who do show up.
“You say you’re just trying to report what people will be talking about tomorrow, and I say people will be talking about whatever it is you’re reporting.”
Not true. I wish! If we lead with a dud…people change the channel. We have minute by minute overnight research to prove it. We know what will keep people and what wont. And if we dont capture them at the top of the newscast…they wont stay to watch the other stuff later on, with could be important stories to.
Let me (respectfully) remind you, WSPA is currently the #1 top rated news station in the market, and the number one station in the state.
Its not by accident. Whether you agree with the approach or not. (and you certainly dont have to!)
Keep up the good work…
Jonathan
“Not true. I wish! If we lead with a dud…people change the channel. We have minute by minute overnight research to prove it. We know what will keep people and what wont. And if we dont capture them at the top of the newscast…they wont stay to watch the other stuff later on, with could be important stories to.”
I understand what brings in the most people. It’s called playing to the lowest common denominator. As I wrote before, even in our own admittedly smaller way, we see how that works here on this site. If I wanted to increase the number of pageviews my column gets every week, all I’d have to do is write about what “people want to talk about”, and watch the the traffic spike every Monday when my column goes up. I believe approaching my column that way would be unbelievably cynical, and not for a minute would I even consider writing with only “the numbers” in mind.
I realize that it’s not an exact comparison, but I wonder if you notice that most of what you’ve written about in both your comments has been “the numbers game”. The only defense you’ve been able to give is “that’s what the people want”, and the only measurement you allow to determine “what the people want” is the number of people you draw. That sounds pretty short sighted to me. If everything you cover is covered with little more in mind than how many people are going to tune in, that speaks volumes about why so much of your content is…well…bad.
I’m didn’t write my OP just to be funny or dismissive of what you guys do over at WSPA. I wrote it because I wish for 5 seconds maybe you guys would consider the public interest you’re supposed to be protecting instead of the advertising dollars you plan on collecting. Whether you realize it or not, journalism isn’t just a business; it’s a responsibility to inform the people of what actually matters. To shirk that responsibility in the name of higher advertising revenue is to make a mockery of the First Amendment protection guaranteed to the press.
I’ve been reading this with some interest. My son is in television as a producer and so he understands well the balance news shows try to maintain to keep viewer ship. I do understand that a car accident is more interesting then what happens at a county commissioners meeting, but the latter usually has greater impact on our community. They just aren’t as interesting a story.
One of the things that bothers me about television media is the repetition, and that there are days when non-local stories seem to get more air time then events here in the upstate. I am still trying to figure out the why, when that same story will be heavily highlighted again on national news shows. Maybe its just me, but hearing more rehashing over the mistaken arrest of some college professor and what everyone in politics thinks about it, is not really relevant news, especially as it drags on for a couple of weeks. My son mentioned that the media was partially to blame for this small story making such big news. I suspect mistaken assessments of situations do occur amongst our police departments and private citizens from time to time, why this one made prolonged national headlines is, to me a complete mystery.
I am not saying WSPA has done that with that particular story, it is just that I wonder if the media latches on to certain more sensationalized stories or people and covers them for the same reasons that People and Us magazines are so popular. People love watching other people’s controversy. I don’t mind a little of it myself, but in small doses. I also don’t always see relevance the need for such stories to be featured on local news stations as much as it is these days, much less national coverages. For the record it is rare that I watch national news.
I have WSPA bookmarked, and I will read headlines from time to time. I am admittedly, not much of a television watcher, preferring to use the web to access any news. I am more of a reader then a viewer, and have long been that way. Moreso now days, as I feel that reporting is more opinion based then simple information and factual based.
I gave up on TV news a long time ago. Car crashes and violent crimes may well be what people want to watch, but it’s not relevant to my life in any real way. On occasion, I’m sure there are TV news stories that break the formula.
When you work in print, one thing that happens A LOT is that the TV news swoops in on your work. You can put in tons of work researching an original story, take all the risk, deal with all the fact checking and editing, finally break it in print and then see the local network affiliate run a very shallow version of the same thing that night. They called your sources to get quotes, used your research for their information, took your story to deliver viewers to their advertisers. If you’re lucky, sometimes they credit your story as their source, but often not. It can be frustrating, particularly after the first story runs and they neglect to mention your story in their follow-up coverage. It becomes “their” story.
A lot of print journalists refer to TV news people as “news readers” rather than reporters for this very reason. I won’t say that’s always fair — I’m not trying to knock anyone’s work here — but I definitely understand the sentiment.
You almost never see the reverse, where a big investigative story on the local TV news leads to an investigation by print journalists. In fact, I can’t think of any instance where this has happened in any publication I’ve been involved with. There’s a reason for this: TV news generally lets other people do the investigative stuff, opting instead to popularize those stories once all the work has been done.
Of course, what we do with the Sparkle City Headlines here isn’t much different — we’re talking about someone else’s work — so I’m not pointing a finger in blame. But if we had the same resources as even a humble TV news show, we’d use them very differently.
I’d also like to submit that one reason car crashes and fires and crimes get reported is because they are MUCH easier stories to tell visually. Examining the intricacies of local government is hard work, and it takes time and patience to get good stories. It’s also boring work much of the time, as it’s mostly people talking, rather than images of cryptic happenings behind police tape or buildings burning.
I’m sure there are challenges in driving to a location and getting a good visual story — I’m not saying it’s not difficult in its own context — but it’s not the same thing at all as an in-depth piece of print journalism. I’d bet you could easily tell 10 relatively shallow visual stories in the same time it takes to research even a basic story contextualizing something on, say, local government. I’ve found that TV news generally opts to go for the flashiest, easiest stories to tell. This is the major reason why I don’t watch TV news.
The corporate culture of mainstream media has basically destroyed news coverage in markets such as ours. I applaud Jonathan for coming here and I appreciate his perspective, but it’s clear that he has bought into the corporate definition of what good journalism is: it’s all about ratings and revenue.
It’s great that channel 7 is the “top” station in the market and the state. I don’t even know what that means. Top at what? Attracting viewers? At calling out unscrupulous contractors? Or at doing real enterprise and investigative journalism that makes its viewers smarter, exposes corruption, and helps people understand complex, nuanced topics through relentless reporting and crisp storytelling?
I expect and understand the executives in the corner offices say this baloney about why car crashes and Lil’ Cricket robberies lead and stuff that matters gets buried. They’ve got to because they’ve long ago decided to do the corporate pinheads’ bidding and convinced themselves that the only way to stay in business is to cut costs and cover the easy stuff, thereby keeping your profit margins where the stock analysts want them even though the journalism product has been drastically weakened. They make themselves feel better about it with all this community journalism propaganda — “this is actually what people care about” nonsense.
But it’s distressing when reporters start buying it and repeating it instead of pushing back on their editors and fighting for the time and money it takes to kick some tail and do stuff that matters.
There used to be great veteran reporters at almost every medium- and even small-sized daily newspapers in the country. They’re gone now, for the most part. They were the highest-paid and they got bought out first when the industry went down earlier this decade.
What’s left for the most part are young reporters and young editors who don’t have the experience, expertise, or energy to train these kids how to do stuff that matters. And if they do, they don’t have the time, because instead of having a couple of assistant editors helping them direct the news staff, they have one or none and instead of just worrying about the local news reporting operation, they’re dealing with a million other things that someone else used to do.
I don’t have an answer for it all. But it’s probably going to have to start with a new model that doesn’t include Wall Street stock analysts having more power over the makeup of the newsroom than the local editor has.
“But it’s probably going to have to start with a new model that doesn’t include Wall Street stock analysts having more power over the makeup of the newsroom than the local editor has.”
I couldn’t agree more with this statement. The only way real journalism has a chance is if the people in charge care more about the content than the revenue.
Jonathan lost me when he referred to people tuning in to WSPA as “consumers”, and stated that WSPA is the top in the “market”.
That’s like saying that The Eagles are the greatest rock band ever because they’ve sold the most albums in the US.