Attention Span--What?

A while back I caught the last five minutes of one of the usually pontificating Fox News Analysts in a question and answer period on the public television channel. For once he seemed to be giving some honest answers and I thought he might have been fired when he got back to Fox, but not that I’ve heard so far. They probably know their audience doesn't watch quality programming. One thing the Fox nitwit said was unbelievably interesting, though. He remarked that most news watchers complain about the incessant "crawler text" on the screen (as do I) that lets the network tell 2 and 3 stories or sets of facts at a time over the primary Voice/Picture of the program. He said the theory is that it appeals to the younger generation that grew up playing video games and who MUST have multiple sources of input just to stay awake, much less stay interested. BUT, he remarked casually, there are no numbers of any kind which indicate that young people have been affected and begun to watch news in any larger numbers. The audience for news IS (as it always has been) an older market and though everybody in the industry understands that to be true, none of the butthead executives (all young?) in charge has any interest in dropping all that clutter of text from the screen and thus let the actual news audience be comfortable! What? What?! WHAAT?! He said it, I didn't.