in the recent past removed lower-screen scrolls from daytime programming and used them during its primetime opinion shows, when hosts like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham typically riff on the news, rather than directly report on it.News tickers became an almost de facto part of the screen after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, when many news outlets went commercial-free amid heightened public demand for information.
Media companies have found other uses for their crawls. CNN has used it in the past to call attention to other programs, including its spate of documentary shows and specials. Fox News Channel will sometimes augment its news crawl with a separate graphics box telling viewers about guests slated to appear during the program currently on screen.
There has even been chatter over the years about running copy from advertisers in the scrolling graphic line. The scrolls’ presence bears testament to the increasingly fragmented attention span of the regular news viewer. A different generation of news aficionado would have found the news ticker distracting, even unwelcome. Younger viewers, however, are accustomed to seeing multiple modules of content on the screen of their laptop computer or mobile phone or tablet. If MSNBC feels viewers want to focus solely on anchors like Katy Tur down the road, chances are its news crawl will vanish anew.
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