Economic downturns often forced profit-centered media properties to find ways to cut down costs. Not even 3 years after NBC’s parent company, RCA was sold to General Electric, they were finding every efficiency possible to make NBC be very profitable and ensure that they’d get it “for free” when GE sold mostly all the former RCA assets.
“Corporate media” that is often used to degrade the media in 2023 to me is a slur, but it was in 1985, when most of the our present media companies became more profit centered, than being a utility to inform and entertain. (the other three was Bill Paley’s sale of CBS to Larry Tisch, The Capital Cities acquisition of ABC and News Corporations acquisition of the Fox Movie studios and Metromedia chain of indie stations.)
For NBC, they did a lot of cost cutting, for instance NBC wasn’t entirely based at 30 Rock before latter part of the 80s, they were based off various offices on the Manhattan island. By the end of the 80s, virtually all the NBC operations were in 30 Rock soley.
Continue reading Cutting Corners, The Media Industry’s Obsession to Automation