The Downfall of Old Media is Actually Its Life Support

If you asked me to name five facts about myself, somewhere between three and four would be my obsession with Saturday Night Live (SNL). I could talk for hours about how Ashley Padilla is the best addition to the cast in 20 years (argue with a wall) or pull any recent bit from Colin & Che’s Weekend Update. However, my obsession with SNL is a recent one. What was once easily dismissed as just something my parents found funny is now something that I do too, and watch religiously. And it’s not just SNL. From classic rock to vinyl to old Hollywood movies, older forms of art and media have become a core staple of the teenage identity. Social media exposure is a large part of why younger generations become so attached to media that is older and more traditional.

The dominant narrative is that social media is an existential threat to traditional media. From the collapse of newspaper print circulation, to the decline in network TV viewership since the 2000s, the crumbling of the pillars that made up entertainment for decades has been attributed to social media. When 40 percent of consumers find social media to be more diverse than TV, it’s clear why that shift happens. Social media enables a user to not have to commit to a single source or type of content and experience all of it in all of its nuances. Social media being free is also crucial to its success, and so is the mechanism behind it: advertising. The advertising dollars tell an important story, one of shifting focus from newspapers and old media to social media, bankrupting older institutions. While United States (U.S.) newspaper advertising revenue fell from $49.4 billion in 2005 to $8.8 billion in 2020, social media advertising grew from $16 billion in 2014 to $230 billion in 2023; the numbers tell a clear story of social media taking away from traditional media. 

It also goes beyond that. Social media is engineered with an addictive nature, and with it come different reward mechanisms that have shortened attention spans, making traditional media even harder to watch for users. Social media use in adolescence has been linked to the same neurological pathways as substance addiction. Traditional media, whether network TV, newspapers, or music, have to figure out how to engineer their product to fit the social media world, and in doing so, fight for their survival in the face of it. 

Yet a force that was initially viewed as the armageddon of traditional media seems to be the force that is sustaining it. Traditional media, things like long-running live television or newspapers, can easily be seen as the first thing lost to short-form content and short attention spans. However, if these forms of traditional media can use social media to their advantage and tailor their content to fit it, doing so can be the key to their survival. Take SNL for example. In its 50th season last year, it saw 8.1 million viewers across all platforms, including social media, jumping 53 percent in social media viewership from 2024 to 2025. As social media viewership rose, so did overall viewership. Since TikTok hit the U.S. in 2018, old media has needed to learn how to pivot and make its content accessible to new audiences. When this shift is done right, it is transformative. While a 60-second “Get Ready With Me” or an AI Fruit Love Island video is designed to be attention-grabbing, a 60-second clip from the Weekend Update or Ariana Grande’s punchline in a sketch can be just as arresting. And when people watch short-form content, the numbers show us that, ultimately, they’re more likely to watch a full episode too. This translates to a long-term, steady growth in viewership, ultimately leading to more profits for the institutions. The pattern is clear among these institutions: the key to remaining successful in the post-social media era is to weaponize what would be your biggest adversary by turning it into your life support. 

Traditional forms of media that are successful in the digital age are so because they know how to morph their content into the type that is successful on social media. The viral nature of social media can make a great episode so much greater. The international stage of social media allows traditional forms to spread and sustain themselves, provided they do it correctly. 

The generation that leads social media is also the generation that leads the revival of classic forms of media. Adapting to the digitized age is imperative when reaching the younger generations. The same generation that grew up entirely on social media is also the one making SNL clips go viral or fangirling over vinyl and old music. The narrative that Gen Z is killing traditional media is wrong, because it is our involvement in social media that is allowing for its resurgence. We are the first generation that has grown up with social media at our disposal and can dictate how we want to interact with it. The medium in which we experience this nostalgic art might be different, but the meaning stays the same. Because we are interacting with traditional media in this new way, these companies must enact long-term change so other generations can eventually follow suit. 

It is important to note that we cannot take the increase in viewership and use of social media at face value and assume a long-term, steady increase in true fandom. When pillars of American culture and long-form media get scaled down to a 60-second clip to gain viewership from a target audience, it can take away from the meaning of the art overall. And when these forms of media become too focused on their social media presence, they risk writing for a clip or a viral video, rather than fulfilling the true meaning of their art. When social media becomes less of a necessity and more of an all-encompassing platform for these institutions, it clearly does more harm than good. Ultimately, there is a clear difference between consuming content and appreciating it, and we need to be careful about blurring the lines and losing traditional media forever. 

In order to allow traditional forms of media to stay alive, we must allow them to involve themselves in our social media world and embrace its presence. All art grows and changes over time, and allowing that process to happen for our traditional forms of media is natural. In the long run, allowing all our media to work harmoniously is the true recipe for viewing, understanding, and appreciating good art.