The Free-TV Model Is Broken, Now Where Is the Fix?

The free-TV model is broken and someone needs to fix it, and fast. It's not that broadcast networks can't make money. They still make boatloads; in fact, the lion's share of all TV dollars are still spent in network. It's just that sitting next to cable's dual revenue stream, the equation doesn't seem to make sense anymore. And things look much worse than they really are because last year media companies had low programming costs (thanks to the writers' strike) and a stable ad environment. This year, it's the opposite. Higher programming costs sit across the ledger from ad revenue that might be down as much as 10% across TV. And those ad dollars don't look like they're coming back to pre-recession levels for many years.