Ideological News Dominates Prime-Time Cable Now

Anyone have a tow truck handy? CNN is in a ditch.

As I mentioned yesterday, the network that invented 24-hour cable news has hit a new low, falling to No. 3 in the prime-time ratings race, behind both Fox News (NWS) and MSNBC (GE). It's gotten so bad that Fox's Bill O'Reilly has actually taken to saying kind things about CNN, possibly out of pity. (He called Anderson Cooper "an honest guy" and said Wolf Blitzer "does a nice job.")

Sure, prime time is only three hours out of the day, and there are ways of slicing the numbers that are more favorable to CNN. And MSNBC appears to be giving its Time Warner-owned competitor a gift by postponing plans to create a new show for the 10 p.m. hour, which currently features a rebroadcast of Countdown.

Still, it's bad. The trend lines are unfavorable. The twin surges at Fox and MSNBC seem to confirm the theory that cable news viewers, if not TV news consumers in general, want their headlines pre-sifted through an ideological filter and delivered by strong personalities. Unfortunately for CNN, we only have two major political parties in this country. Despite early buzz, Campbell Brown's show, an experiment in non-partisan attitude, has turned into "the most problematic part" of CNN's lineup, says AP.

Clearly the executives at CNN are running low in the fresh-ideas department. I am, too. Why don't you have a go at it?

Comments

[VennData:]

I suggest nudity, but that get's you right back to just another sort of dichotomy.

Mar 31 03:41 PM

[LPC:]

All you have to do is look at the polls for Obama (66% favorable) to see why Fox news is failing. The problems with CNN is (1) it parades a host of negative people against Obama, (2) Its reporters for most of the day just read off the teleprompter without any knowledge of the issues, (3) they also report on a lot of stuff which a majority of us do not care about and (4) they have a lot of commercials.

Mar 31 09:43 PM

[Pan:]

CNN could try modeling it's news format after that of public television.

Apr 01 01:11 AM

[Mr. Ed, Jr.:]

Check your facts. FOX is not failing.

(Please save all vitriol for someone else-- I prefer to deal in facts, not ideology.)

FOX dominates the cable news ratings in primetime. They have actually increased viewers by 29% YOY, and benefitted from the election of Obama, as did MSNBC.

FOX is second to USA Network in ALL of cable in primetime (among all viewers)

FOX has more viewers in primetime than CNN and MSNBC combined.

MSNBC improved their ratings as they moved more and more to the left. FOX's Hannity is doing better without liberal co-host Colmes.

People are tuning in to what they want to hear, and the media is only too happy to oblige. Objectivity is tough to sell these days, I guess.



On Mar 31 09:43 PM User 351152 wrote:

> All you have to do is look at the polls for Obama (66% favorable)
> to see why Fox news is failing. The problems with CNN is (1) it parades
> a host of negative people against Obama, (2) Its reporters for most
> of the day just read off the teleprompter without any knowledge of
> the issues, (3) they also report on a lot of stuff which a majority
> of us do not care about and (4) they have a lot of commercials.

Apr 01 03:48 AM

[Duude:]

I see things a little differently than Jeff here. Apparently, he was born yesterday. CNN, formerly known as the Clinton News Network has always been an ideologue when it came to reporting news. They have always been slanted in what the cover and how often. Hasn't anyone else noted the percent of positive vs negative news stories of the two presidential candidates this past campaign season? Fox was more balanced than CNN and well, no sense in even talking about MSNBC. I think the real problem with CNN is that they have competition now whereas 5, 10 15 years ago they had little or none. I understand Headline News is now beating CNN. Maybe the problem is Anderson Cooper and Campbell are the best they have.

Apr 01 11:53 AM

[desicon:]

Just a little correction.

MSNBC does play to the left wing emotions. FOX reporting and debate format is more objective. Not being left wing does not automaticlly falls under right wing. With internet, blogs and raw footages in youtube one can easily verify the truth (if one wants to). So I do not pur FOX under right wing.

CNN pretended to be true news outlet, now that they are disrobed, left went to MSNBC, right and truth seekers went to fox. Few who do not know how to operate remote are stuck watching CNN.

Apr 01 12:58 PM