For cable, the lines keep blurring

The story of 2012 for cable was just as much a story for broadcast. The lines between the two continue to blur, in terms of ratings, ad dollars and viewer perception. While that line will not disappear entirely in 2013, it will fade even further.

Events that have traditionally aired on broadcast, such as the Bowl Championship Series and Wimbledon, will continue to migrate to cable. Though broadcast still dominates the top 50 programs of the week, more cable shows will win their timeslots over the Big Four in key demographics, following the lead of programs like A&E’s “Duck Dynasty” and MTV’s “Jersey Shore.” And for the third time in as many years, cable networks will receive more dollars than broadcast during the upfront, increasing the gap between the two to a record margin. “Television is becoming more blurred,” says Marc Morse, senior vice president, national broadcast buying, at RJ Palmer. “Over the past five, 10, 15, 20 years we’ve seen broadcast ratings go down and cable come up. At some point we’ll reach a crossing point, though we’re not there yet. I think less and less they’re being talked about as two different things than one and the same.” The outlook for cable over the next few years is very cheery, one of the few media with healthy growth prospects coming out of the long recession.