Jaci Clement: Media to Face Rocky Year Ahead 

What happens next year will redefine the future of Long Island and, along with it, just how much you’ll know about what’s happening in your own backyard.

As Appeared In Long Island Business News, Sept. 28, 2015

What happens next year will redefine the future of Long Island and, along with it, just how much you’ll know about what’s happening in your own backyard.

If Altice is as strong a company as it is reputed to be, expect to see a radically different Cablevision by 2018. Assuming, of course, Altice’s acquisition of CVC happens midyear 2016, as planned.

Thus far, Altice gets straight As for saying all the right things in all the right places: The company pledges to improve customer service, create new efficiencies via streamlining and infrastructure updates and is committed to local news. It even promises a hands-off approach to editorial policy.

Sounds spectacular, doesn’t it? Not so fast.

In order to achieve the efficiencies, Altice seeks to cut $900 million in operational costs plus another $150 million down the road. While doing so, they are relying on the $200 million in advertising revenue from Newsday and amNewYork in addition to what the cable, phone and internet products command.

The way to do that: Blow up what’s there and start anew.

The problem, aside from an aging infrastructure and lackluster customer service, is what we have now is a cable company that happens to own a newspaper.

Cable and newspapers have different missions and require different skill sets. Ever watch a print reporter try to deliver a story on camera? Train wreck. There are many strong barriers to creating the type of multimedia company Altice imagines, unless, of course, they replace a majority of the staff.

And then, what happens to the news itself, News12 and Newsday, in particular?

There are actually many options here. I’d love to see the creation of a true 24-hour cable news channel (as opposed to repeating the same news cast over and over), but that would only happen if Altice’s margins are better than expected and that’s doubtful.

Most likely, what you’ll see is morning, midday and evening news, with syndicated programming in-between. A growing media trend is to get out of content creation, since that’s where the expenses tally up. Now, simply owning the bandwidth is the true power, and renting out the time to paid programming is the revenue driver.

Long Island’s aging population demands that the printed version of Newsday remain for now, but that may prove problematic over time. Apple’s work on ad blocking technology and the growing trend of cutting the cord on cable pose real challenges for Altice’s Long Island future. That may mean Newsday is back on the market at a much more affordable price than it commanded in 2008.

This latter scenario would offer exactly what Long Island needs most: A system of checks and balances within its media voices.

Jaci Clement is CEO and executive director of the Fair Media Council, headquartered in Bethpage.