Posted on 03/26/2009 6:27:41 AM PDT by Zakeet
All that cheerleading for Obama-Biden, and all they got was a continuation of their lousy long-term ratings drop.
Perhaps one reason why Big 3 network coverage of the 2008 presidential election was so heavy on fawning favoritism towards Barack Obama and Joe Biden combined with all-out attacks on John McCain and Sarah Palin was that the belief that an Obama presidency might revive interest in their declining evening newscasts.
If so, that strategy has spectactularly failed. Nine weeks into Obama's presidency, it's clear that after a short-lived revival, the audiences for NBC's Brian Williams, ABC's Charles Gibson, and especially CBS's Katie Couric are smaller than ever, and that (with the exception of NBC's Williams) the remainder who are still tuning in are older than ever.
After a significant post-election rise that peaked during the first full week after Obama's inauguration, the viewership drop at all three networks has been steep, to the point where all three have fewer people tuning in than they did a year ago at this time (source: the Evening News Ratings page at Media Bistro):
From their respective levels during the week of January 26, NBC, ABC, and CBS are down 17%, 15%, and 21%, respectively. As a whole, as seen above, they're off 17.4%. In the coveted 25-54 demo, the decline from January 26 is even worse (off 26%, 19%, and 26%). An astonishing 70% of viewers is not in the 25-54 demo, and it can be safely assumed that the vast majority of those are 55 or over.
It looks like the geniuses at the Big 3 Nets got the worst of both worlds: They've lost even more older viewers, not in small part because of their obviously biased coverage, and they couldn't hold onto younger people who, at least during the election, were disproportionately Obama fans. Too bad, so sad.
We now return to our regularly scheduled evening news show meltdown.
Here's what I think of Freepers who enjoy watching my ratings drop.
Poor kewpie. Soon she’s be reading the news while pole dancing, hoping that’ll draw attention.
Bad news for Geritol and Poli-grip. Where are they going to put their ads now?
Last night, while watching the 684th re-run of NCIS, I realized that I have NOT watched single minute of any network TV since last summer. I became suddenly aware that I cannot name a SINGLE program or its time and day.
The question now arises, are we beginning to see the demise of the BIG THREE, as we are watching the death of the print media?
Countless millions of $$$$ of sponsors money is being wasted when millions of viewers refuse to watch the garbage put out by the networks. This will be interesting to watch.
ping
"Network evening newscasts will go dark after the '08 elections and their news divisions disbanded."
Walter Abbott, (b. 1950), Media observer and commentator
Ugh!!!! The visuals....
The demise of the Big 3 — Shouldn’t they be asking for bail-outs? Cannot possibly be THEIR fault that no one watches their All-Propaganda, All the Time, programs.
We all give thanks Kate did not die in vain, probie!
From:
http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/2006/narrative_cabletv_audience.asp?cat=3&media=6
Only Fox News Is Growing
The overall prime time and daytime numbers, however, are deceiving, since all of the growth in viewership at the three main cable news operations was due to Fox News channel. The other channels actually saw declines in their median audience.
In prime time, Fox News’s median viewership rose by 9%. CNN and MSNBC had losses of 11% and 2% respectively.
March 16 numbers: about 23 million viewers aggregate for the big three.
Isn’t that right about the number of Rush’s listeners? Before the DNC bumped up his audience share?
From Conclusion:
http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/2006/narrative_cabletv_audience.asp?cat=3&media=6
—
Critics on the left and many in the mainstream dismiss or at least criticize Fox News as being one-sided.
As the Atlanta Journal Constitution put it, “Detractors boil down Fox’s rise to a perceived pandering to a disaffected segment of society — read: white middle class — weary of U.S.-bashing here and abroad.
They are eager to pin the scarlet letter C, for conservative, on the lapels of on-air personalities, beneath the tiny American flags that a few wear.”
if they revamped their entire news departments to make it a real watchdog instead of being humpleg media, they’d get more ratings... but they wouldn’t
Amazing - why is Couric still around? She has been failing for how many years now? She must have some major dirt on CBS execs.
Rush’s listeners are nearing 30 million thanks to 0
A look at the mindset of the MSM:
Shortly after hitting the iceberg, the captain of the Titanic called a blue ribbon panel to discuss a totally unrelated matter.
Fully assembled, the problem was laid before the panel, "Forget about the iceberg, for some odd reason, the ship has begun to take on water at an alarming rate."
After full analysis of the situation, the panel comes up with their recommendation:
Drill holes in the other side of the boat to let the water out.
Fossil, your link is to a three year old article. The media changes a lot each quarter.
Was that the one where McGee got poison Ivy?
obama’s ?
Probably. The cable channels and iTunes are quite handily killing the big three networks.
I haven’t watched a “broadcast” show on its native network in almost three years. But I’ve watched cable shows and bought shows from iTunes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.