• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, November 18, 2025

Is legacy TV still doomed?

This has been the consensus for more years than many of us can remember.

It is only a matter of time, many have come to believe, before the “legacy” sector of the TV business will become unsustainable and/or unnecessary.

Let’s suppose that the future -- either near or still far away -- has arrived, and the companies that own the broadcast networks, TV stations and basic-cable channels have come to the conclusion that it is time to close up shop on all of them.

How exactly is this supposed to work? Someone flips a switch and -- voila! -- no more CBS or HGTV or VH-1 or Oxygen? 

True, the “software” -- i.e., content -- can continue on the other distribution platforms that have leapt far ahead of the legacy channels. 

The network brand names might still have some value. They can go to streaming too, right along with their shows and major sports contracts. Oh, I forgot -- this is already happening.

But what about studios, equipment, contracts and broadcast licenses?

Wouldn’t it be amazing if sometime in the future, the day will come when broadcasters will actually give up their FCC licenses instead of applying to have them renewed?

Wouldn’t that be a turn of events, if the broadcasters were able to say: We don’t think over-the-air distribution of our content makes sense anymore. Keep your broadcast licenses. We don’t want them anymore. 

And bingo -- no more license-renewal threats from presidents and their FCC commissioners. 

For the FCC and those in Congress who sit on the Senate and House telecommunications committees, one of the main purposes of propping up the FCC-licensed broadcast system was to ensure that there would be an over-the-air communications system in place in case of an extreme national emergency. 

But is this still necessary in the age of smartphones? Maybe or maybe not. But “broadcasting” with a “signal?” Someday, this will go the way of the dodo bird.

Meanwhile, at least the broadcast networks are still watched and still alive, by all appearances.

The same cannot necessarily be said of the basic-cable business. Their future prospects are already being weighed and scrutinized as the basic-cable network groups get sectioned off from the rest of their companies to sink or swim on their own. 

Which has to go first? The cable systems or the cable channels? More people are cutting the cord with cable TV every day. Ergo, the business of providing cable TV content over wires will eventually cease, right? 

The tipping point for basic cable will come when the owners of basic-cable networks come to the realization that these properties have no future, no matter how many commercials they cram into their shows -- most of which are made as cheaply as possible. Actually, this realization is probably already here.

And if the basic-cable networks start disappearing one by one, then your local cable system will be little more than an array of blank channels. Game over for those who still subscribe to cable, but meaningless for those who do not.

Basic cable may drop away before the legacy networks do. The broadcasters are still anchored by live sports, although the time might come when they and their companies will be outbid completely by the Amazons of the world.

In any case, this is mostly hypothetical. It might be just as accurate to predict that basic cable and network TV will outlive us all.