CNN's fall continues

CNN, arguably the originator of 24-hour news network, and its once predominant purveyor, is seeing its ratings falling by 33% in the key 25-54 demographic over the last year under the leadership of Jeff Zucker.  Total viewing (all demos) wasn't much better, with a fall of 28% in the last year.  Nielsen reports that last week's key audience (adults 25-54) for CNN averaged only 78,000 over the day and 98,000 in primetime.  The overall viewing numbers weren't much better, with only 277,000 average in primetime. 

In contrast, the numbers for the same demo (adults 25-54) for MSNBC were 148,000 total day and 235,000 in primetime.  MSNBC's numbers were down 5% from same time last year for that demo, but down 11% in overall viewing.  Fox News Channel continued their recent dominance, with 218,000 total day average and 261,000 primetime average for the 25-54 demo.  In contrast to CNN and MSNBC's long term ratings declines, Fox's ratings were up 3% in the 25-54 demo, and 6% in total viewing over the same time last year.

CNN's frontline primetime programs were no help:  Anderson Cooper's AC360 posted its lowest ratings since moving to the 8pm primetime slot, and Piers Morgan Live had its second-lowest ratings in the last year.  Total viewing for AC360 was just 252,000 (Fox's O'Rielly led the time slot with 2.43 million viewers and MSNBC's All In With Chris Hayes pulled 557,000 total viewers).

Monday's overnight ratings weren't much better.  At 8pm. CNN's AC360 pulled in 457,000 viewers, still a distant third behind Fox's O'Rielly (with 2,662,000) and MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes (with 903,000).  O'Rielly's audience, in fact, was almost twice that of CNN and MSNBC combined).  At the 9pm slot, CNN's Piers Morgan pulled in 445,000 viewers, still a distant third to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow (1,047,000) and Fox's Kelly File (2,241,000).
Sources -  CNN Falls to Lowest Ratings Yet Under Jeff Zucker,  Variety
CNN Ratings Decline Stirs Worry, New York Times
Cable News Ratings for Monday, January 20, 2014,  TV by the Numbers

Cable News News: Big drops

Considering that last November was a Presidential election year, its hardly surprising that this years cable news network ratings are down.  The actual numbers though, are somewhat shocking - both in isolation and as trends.  They can even serve as a guide to reporting bias.

• Left-leaning coverage will gloat over Fox News Channel's drop of 21% in total viewing.
• Right-leaning coverage will trumpet CNN and MSNBC losing half their primetime audience.
• Interesting, in looking over news reports, there's a lot of a third tack - discussing the CNN - MSNBC battle (for a very distant second) and ignoring or burying the Fox News numbers.

This year's numbers for November had FNC (Fox News) attracting more than 2 million viewers in primetime over the November ratings period (down 18%), with MSNBC pulling in 752,000 (down 50%) and CNN with 488,000 (down 54%).  In terms of total viewing, Fox was down 21% from last year's numbers, MSNBC fell by 45%, and CNN by 48%.

For CNN, that's 15 straight months of declining audience numbers.  And while Fox was also down, it ended the month coming in second (to ESPN) in primetime viewing, and still pulled in more viewers than all the other cable news networks combined.  November 2013 marked the 143rd straight month with Fox News as the top cable news network.


Sources: Nov. 2013 Ratings: CNN Hits Year Low,  TVNewser
November 2013 Cable News Ratings: MSNBC Tops CNN; Numbers Down From Last Year,  Huffington Post
Cable News Ratings: Fox News Channel Leads November As Nets Drop Sans Election Coverage, Multichannel News

(edited 10/2/2013 to add keywords)

Pew 2013 State of the News Media Report released

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism has released its annual "State of the News Media" report for 2013.  I'll try to take a closer look at some of the components over the next week or two, but here's some highlights from the overview.

Resources for newsrooms continue to decline.  Estimated cuts for 2012 put full-time professional news staff numbers under 40,000 in the U.S., the lowest employment level since 1978 (and down 30% from its peak in 2000).  This contributed to shifts in news coverage - sports, weather, and traffic reports account for 40% of local news program content.  On CNN, the number of produced news packages in 2012 were half that of five years ago.  Across the cable news networks, live coverage of news events fell 30%, while interview segments rose 31%.  The sole remaining news magazine, Time, cut 5% of its staff earlier this year.

Pew interprets this as resulting in "a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or to question information put into its hands."  In fact, they suggest, this fall has been noticed by news consumers.  A recent survey found that 31% of respondents had indicated that they had stopped using a news source because it no longer provided the amount and quality of news they expected and wanted.

Source - The State of The News Media 2013 Report, Pew Research Centers.

Edit - fixed some typos, phrasing (19/3/2013)

CNN Lays off 50, blames technology, audience

It's being reported that CNN will be laying off some 50 editorial staffers, primarily in the Atlanta headquarters.  In laying the blame on technology and audience shifts, CNN SVP Jack Womack took a slightly different approach, apparently arguing in an internal memo that social media and user generated content has made the network "less reliant on editorial staffers, particularly photojournalists."  Referencing a three-year internal review of it's "workflow", Womack reportedly wrote that CNN’s review found that user-generated content, through CNN iReport, and social media in general did a fine enough job in producing and distributing breaking news stories. Womack’s memo indicated the review showed less need for staff photojournalists, as well as recommending changes in how photojournalists were assigned stories.

So CNN is now outsourcing its reporting to the public (or at least some of it).  Any guess what the impact will be on CNN's credibility and integrity?

Sources - CNN Lays Off 50 Staffers, Citing ‘Workflow Changes,’ Reliance On User-Gen,  paidContent.org
Dozens of Jobs Cut at CNN; New York, Atlanta, Washington, DC, Miami, LA Staffers Pink-Slipped,  TVNewser