Posted on 01/05/2004 4:47:38 PM PST by Pokey78
News from Iraq made 2003 a good year for ratings at cable news networks -- and it was especially good at Fox News.
Fox, the cable ratings leader for the past two years, widened its lead over Atlanta-based CNN. Fox averaged 1.02 million viewers at any given moment, a 53 percent increase from the year before. CNN averaged 665,000, a 24 percent increase.
Fox grew the most in prime time, averaging 1.7 million viewers for the 8 to 11 p.m. time slot, a 45 percent increase. CNN averaged 1.1 million, a 22 percent increase.
Fox also grew slightly more than CNN among 25- to 54-year-olds, a key demographic for selling advertising.
Though Fox has become the ratings leader, Atlanta-based CNN still enjoys higher advertising revenue and fatter profits.
CNN executives found some good news in the year-end ratings data. The network continues to attract the largest total number of viewers. That's because more people check in briefly with CNN, while Fox viewers tend to watch significantly longer.
CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson said the network is benefitting from an overall increase in viewership of cable news vs. broadcast.
In 2003, the average American household watched 3 hours and 6 minutes of cable news per week -- an increase of 41 minutes over 2002, according to CNN's analysis of Nielsen Media Research numbers. At the same time, the average household watched 2 hours and 19 minutes of broadcast news programming, including magazine shows -- a decrease of two minutes from the year before.
"It shows a continuing trend of viewers migrating from broadcast to cable for news," Robinson said.
The analysis, however, is somewhat of an apples-to-oranges comparison because a broadcast network like ABC airs three hours of news on a typical day, compared with a cable news network's 24 hours. Broadcast newscasts attract much larger audiences than even the top-rated shows on cable.
MSNBC, already a distant third among cable news networks, slipped in most categories. For instance, it averaged total day viewership of 320,000 viewers. That was a 22 percent increase over 2002 -- a smaller gain than competitors enjoyed. MSNBC is expected this week to announce a new prime-time show featuring Georgia native Deborah Norville as the host.
| Rank | Location | Receipts | Donors/Avg | Freepers/Avg | Monthlies | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 51 | South Dakota | 20.00 |
1 |
20.00 |
44 |
0.45 |
30.00 |
2 |
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Yes, but this has nothing to do with the content or ratings of the main CNN and FNC channels. It is due almost entirely to the fact that CNN has been around for over twenty years while FNC is barely out of infancy, by cable standards. The fact that FNC had to sign ten-year deals with most cable companies in which Fox pays them to carry the signal, which is the reverse of the usual deal in which the cable companies pay the networks, is a big drag on profits. Those ten-year deals don't expire until 2006. When they do, watch out CNN.
Because, unlike Monica, most Americans have a gag reflex and can only take so much crap from CNN.
I noticed that. I think people should start complaining.
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