'Here,' stated Licklider, 'I should like to coin the term "narrowcasting," using it to emphasize the rejection or dissolution of the constraints imposed by commitment to a monolithic mass-appeal, broadcast approach.
[6] In the beginning of the 1990s, when American television was still mainly ruled by three major networks (ABC, CBS and NBC), it was believed that the greatest achievement was to promote and create content that would be directed towards a huge mass of people, avoiding completely those projects that might appeal to only a reduced audience.
[7] Nevertheless, this changed once independent stations, more cable channels, and the success of videocassettes started increasing and rising, which gave the audiences the possibility of having more options.
[8] It was the arrival of cable television that allowed a much larger number of producers and programmers to aim at smaller audiences, such as MTV, which started off as the channel for those who loved music.
[11] Marketing experts are often interested in narrowcast media as a commercial advertising tool, since access to such content implies exposure to a specific and clearly defined prospective consumer audience.
[20] This evolution towards narrowcasting was discussed in 1993 by Hamid Naficy, who focused on this change specifically in Los Angeles, and how such a content directed towards a narrowed audience affected social culture.
For example, with the rise of Middle Eastern television programs, more content that did not have the pressure to have a mass audience appeal to watch it was able to be produced and promoted.
Ari Mattes of Notre Dame University wrote in an article in The Conversation: "Monolith is one of the first Australian films to critically navigate the ramifications of narrowcasting technology... the strange solitude of interpersonal communication in the global information economy underpins the whole thing".