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Big Three Network Evening News Viewership Has Dropped Like a Rock This Year
NewsBusters ^ | July 11, 2006 | Tom Blumer

Posted on 07/12/2006 5:52:38 AM PDT by teddyballgame

A year ago tomorrow, I did a post on the continued decline in evening news viewership at Big Three Networks NBC, ABC, and CBS, and made these observations and predictions about why that decline was taking place, and would continue (some of last year's text was slightly revised):

All three nightly broadcasts most likely lose money, when isolated from their morning counterparts (Today, Good Morning America, CBS Morning Show) and their documentary shows (Dateline, 60 Minutes, 20/20, etc.). At a minimum, none makes an acceptable level of profit.

BUT, the news operations of each of the Big 3 networks are very small parts of very large organizations (CBS-Viacom, NBC-GE, and ABC-Disney), so small that apparently no one at any of the three parent companies cares enough to do anything about the continued hemorrhaging in their evening new shows, as long as the news operations themselves are profitable.

So because those other parts of the news operations make money, the nightly news programs can chug right along, oblivous to normal profitability expectations.

The journalists who put together the nightly news programs could care less if the broadcasts are profitable. It's obvious that their agenda is more important.

Because of all of the above, the ever-shrinking audience for these broadcasts will be spoon-fed biased reporting, Bush bashing, and conservative-bashing for the foreseeable future.

(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abcnnbcbsdying; broadcastnews; msmwoes
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To: IndyTiger
"Can't remember the last time I watched network or local news on TV. Info can be gathered so much faster and more reliably on the web."

There is ONE good reason for continuing to watch the network news---it's the quickest way to find out what the "propaganda cause du jour" is. It's also good for a laugh.

Local news is still "pretty OK", as long as you stick to "breaking news" stories.

21 posted on 07/12/2006 6:34:16 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel-NRA)
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To: zerosix

"I am persuaded that this fall will be responded by the BIG THREE's drive to start broadcasting in Spanish with English (aka American) subtitles scrolling across the bottom."

That's great insight. I agree with you. The broadcast evening news is tailored to propagandize a relatively uneducated base. An uneducated base that will vote. In the past this had been joe sixpack, typically a democrat. Now... they'll have to reach out to juan sixpack, an illegal who will vote democrat.


22 posted on 07/12/2006 6:37:56 AM PDT by brownsfan (It's not a war on terror... it's a war with islam.)
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To: teddyballgame
I identify three factors:

(1) Widespread availability of news content from other sources.

(2) Decades of declining quality in reportage.

(3) People don't get home from work at 5:15 anymore. Most people commute from the suburbs and would rather allocate their time at home to other pursuits than news they already read online during lunch.

23 posted on 07/12/2006 6:43:55 AM PDT by wideawake ("The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten." - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: Wonder Warthog
You're able to watch local news?  

The self-important braying?  The hyper-bizarre music?  The insane over-reactive coverage?  The whacked-out posturing and inflections?

Seriously, I can't watch 5 minutes of it.  It's way too weird.

 

24 posted on 07/12/2006 6:50:18 AM PDT by Psycho_Bunny
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To: teddyballgame

Just wait till lil cutie couric rides to the rescue of the nightly news.


25 posted on 07/12/2006 6:59:08 AM PDT by OldFriend (I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag.....and My Heart to the Soldier Who Protects It.)
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To: teddyballgame

Competition tightens for network newscasts
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-news12jul12,1,21004.story

Broadcasters' audience size sets new low
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/tv/orl-beach1206jul12,0,7690855.story?coll=orl-caltvtop


26 posted on 07/12/2006 7:12:48 AM PDT by abb (The Dinosaur Media: A One-Way Medium in a Two-Way World)
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To: PBRSTREETGANG
They still do news?

What's a CBS?

27 posted on 07/12/2006 7:15:32 AM PDT by GOPJ (Conservative MSM Publishers are letting the monkeys to run the zoo.)
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To: Temple Owl

ping


28 posted on 07/12/2006 7:16:53 AM PDT by Tribune7
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To: rock_lobsta
Murdoch won't jump on a sinking ship. I give the net's 1/2hr news shows 5 years until total and complete extinction. When Katie & Brian Williams contracts expire, so will the evening news.

Did any of you catch the AP headline about Rove? Novak says Rove source in Plame affair...or something similar. They are irrelevant today and liars to boot.

29 posted on 07/12/2006 7:17:02 AM PDT by chiller (every time we call MSM "mainstream" we confirm their status. "Drive-by" is working nicely.)
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To: Psycho_Bunny
"The self-important braying? The hyper-bizarre music? The insane over-reactive coverage? The whacked-out posturing and inflections? Seriously, I can't watch 5 minutes of it. It's way too weird."

I see you're in Washington also. What do you watch?? I find KING 5 not to be too bad (except for Ken Schram--and I simply mute the TV when his ugly puss shows up). I agree that the other local news channels in the Seattle-Tacoma market pretty much match your description (and I do NOT watch them).

30 posted on 07/12/2006 7:20:18 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel-NRA)
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To: Uncledave

I am surprised that 27 million people still watch network news. First who has time at that hour. Second, of course the liberal slant is unbearable. Third, there are plenty of 24 hour programs that are better and more informative. It just does not make sense.


31 posted on 07/12/2006 7:27:11 AM PDT by napscoordinator
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To: teddyballgame

I wonder if the decline could be traced to fact that, women have taken over the TV media, it is TV for women, about women, operated by women....I, as a male, can not stand to have some pretty 30 year old, with a painted face, dictate the news to me.....


32 posted on 07/12/2006 7:31:13 AM PDT by thinking
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To: OldFriend

Wonder if she will be wearing her newfound wardrobe of black leather? That 'tough' reporting look.


33 posted on 07/12/2006 7:57:34 AM PDT by Westlander (Unleash the Neutron Bomb)
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To: Psycho_Bunny
Whoops--that should have been KOMO TV. Shows how much attention I really pay to them---LOL.

Whatever their call letters--it's definitely the channel with Schram.

34 posted on 07/12/2006 6:37:39 PM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel-NRA)
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To: Uncledave

Wow, great pic.


35 posted on 07/12/2006 6:51:29 PM PDT by knews_hound (Driving Liberals nuts since 1975 !)
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To: Wonder Warthog

It is fascinating the little nuances the news readers project to influence the watchers, ending a statement with a question in their voice, asking another question after a statement, such as too little too late??? Sometimes it isn't so much what they say as how they say it.


36 posted on 07/12/2006 6:57:54 PM PDT by mel
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To: Liz; Milhous; Grampa Dave

a total audience drop of over 20% in just six months (from roughly 27 million to 21 million)...


37 posted on 08/06/2006 8:54:37 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: Uncledave

And Dan Rather thought he was being disrespected at CBS when they let him go.

Most people who had seen their audience drop by 2/3rds would have been shown the door a long time before Rather even if they never practiced fraudulent journalism.

38 posted on 08/06/2006 9:01:10 PM PDT by Tall_Texan (I wish a political party would come along that thinks like I do.)
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To: teddyballgame; george76; Liz; Milhous; weegee; martin_fierro; bert
The elite owners of ABCNNBCBS and publishers of the major dinosaur fishwraps are the modern day, Norman Bates. They are trying to keep the corpses alive by refusing to admit that they are dead and to bury them.


39 posted on 08/07/2006 5:53:34 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (There's a dwindling market for Marxist Homosexual Lunatic wet dreams posing as journalism)
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To: brownsfan
Now... they'll have to reach out to juan sixpack, an illegal who will vote democrat.

I think you mean Juan "Twelve-pack."

40 posted on 08/07/2006 6:32:52 AM PDT by HIDEK6
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