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Posted on 05/10/2015 9:26:12 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Cable news is in trouble. The Pew Research Center reports that the median daily audience for Fox, CNN, and MSNBC is down about 11 percent since 2008.
The Washington Post's Paul Farhi sees a grim future for the industry. He argues that cable news outlets are pretty much where newspapers were a decade ago: their audience is aging, their medium is being disrupted by new technologies, and the next generation of viewers is developing habits and preferences that they're poorly placed to serve. (This is probably a good moment to note that I'm a contributor to MSNBC.)
The networks may still be making money — in 2014, Fox News managed $1.2 billion in profits, while CNN cleared $300 million and MSNBC made a bit more than $200 million — but Farhi suggests "the cable news networks will face bankruptcy the same way Ernest Hemingway once described a character’s financial demise: 'Gradually and then suddenly.'"
Perhaps that's right. But while Farhi's account of cable news outlets' woes focuses mainly on the cable part of the equation, it's also worth considering the problems all three networks are having with the news itself.
The rise of cable news, or at least Fox and MSNBC, in one chart.
The rise of the three major cable news networks were all driven by stories they dominated. CNN was made by the 1991 Gulf War. It wasn't just the first time it passed the networks in ratings; it was the first time CNN showed that it could beat the networks in coverage. You can still feel the surprise in this New York Times article from 1991:
The shooting in the Persian Gulf began tonight with the three broadcast networks committed to covering the war on a 24-hour basis, although their image as news leaders was damaged by the Cable News Network's early dominance of the coverage ... he networks' image was certainly not helped when Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said he was following the attacks on Baghdad on CNN. At least one network station, an NBC station in Detroit, decided to quit its network's coverage to run CNN's. And NBC finally was compelled to interview CNN reporters on the air to get information out of Baghdad.
Fox News, for its part, saw basically exponential growth around 9/11, and then again around the 2008 campaign and Obama's election. MSNBC's rise was driven by the backlash to the Bush administration, and particularly to the Iraq War:
The network held those gains in the first half of the Obama era, as liberals went from terrified to triumphant. But as liberals have gone from triumphant to a bit depressed and checked out, viewership has begun to decline.
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Pew's 2015 State of the Media report.
The recent rise of cable news — particularly Fox and MSNBC — came in a period when the news — particularly political news — was unusually interesting.
Between 2000 and 2012, we saw a contested US presidential election, the largest terrorist attack ever on US soil, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, repeated wave elections, a global financial crisis, the first black president, the rise of the Tea Party, the fight over Obamacare, and the first states to legalize gay marriage and marijuana — and much more. It's been a weirdly interesting, consequential period in American politics. And so the cable news networks, which could devote 24 hours a day to covering these stories, benefited.
But now it's an unusually dull period in American politics. Congress is gridlocked, and is likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. The US, thankfully, isn't reeling from a terrorist attack or a financial crisis. We haven't invaded Iran, at least not yet. And it's not just cable news that's losing viewers because of it. Turnout in the 2014 election was the lowest it's been in 70 years.
You see this, I think, in the specific fortunes of the cable networks. Farhi reports that MSNBC lost 14 percent of its audience in 2014, and Fox lost 2 percent. But CNN prime time — which swung away from politics toward covering plane crashes and airing documentaries — is up 10 percent in 2015.
Which is all to say that Farhi may be right about the long-term decline of cable news — over some extended period of time, both network and cable channels are going to be diminished by whatever it is the internet creates in their place.
But year to year, a lot of the ups and downs might just be the appeal of what's actually in the news. If President Scott Walker goes to war with Iran, MSNBC's ratings are going to go up. If President Hillary Clinton takes away everyone's guns, Fox is going to boom. But for now, relative peace and stability are bad news for cable news.
I guess not that many eyeballs care about what the residents of Baltimore do to each other.
This is really about how Foxnews has dropped.
Looks like all of the nitworks except Fox are in trouble.
“...The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi sees a grim future for the industry...”
This coming from a print newspaper???*ROFL*
Fox is losing viewers...they’ve shunned conservatives with very liberal hosts and repeat guests like Karl Rove.
Too many big government, socialist, lefties on Fox News and elsewhere forces many viewers to go elsewhere.
The ‘lefter’ FoxNews goes, the less I watch.
Now, I mostly just tune in for the morning headlines and shut the TV off afterward.
For real breaking news, I usually go to local TV news streams, if available, or to CNN.
I will not watch MSNBC even for the clown shows.
Looking at the first chart I see Fox News still rising. CNN and MSNBC are falling. HLN has mixed programming with a show called Forensic Science grabbing a large portion of the broadcast day. This show covers how Forensic Science plays a role in solving crimes. What I see is Kliens network in decline and he is looking for answers beside the obvious.
Yep. I'm not interested in what Karl Rove has to say. And I'm not interested Shep Smith's personal opinions on breaking news stories. So I've pretty much given up on Fox.
I get all my opinions from Ezra Klein - NOT. While there are certainly event cycles, maybe people are just sick of the leftward slant.
Yep. Over-educated, university-indoctrinated fuds are leading most companies, I'm sure including FNC, too. Same type that corporately kiss gay ass, with no concern of repercussion from the other 97% of their customer base.
But then, you know what they say about liberalism and mental status...
I still watch some local news stations, but I’ve stopped watching National news, including Fox, unless it’s for a breaking story (as defined by me). The tipping point for me was the 2012 Election. There are plenty of online alternatives to TV. It’s all about the content, TV news simply is a bad product.
I rather watch Al Jazeera America least they are honest about Yemen
This is why the current communist gov’t wants to control the internet so you hear only the news they want you to hear the way the gov’t wants you to hear it.
Not that nobody could see this coming....Ayn Rand, Orwell and a multitude of others since, gov’t managed to berate all with overwhelming communist propaganda and ridicule, the commies see freedom of speech out of control because of the internet, they intend to fix that.
We the people have thus far failed our constitutional mandate to depose a tyrannical gov’t, ever so subtlety they have persuaded us to trade freedom for comfort and fraudulent safety.
If these horse's azz's would simply tell it like it is instead of spinning the sh*t out of everything, they wouuld have far more credibility with the American Public. But, oh no, they have to "grind the axe, grind the axe, grind the axe until there is nothing left but BS which most people can see through.
I personally get almost my news from the internet (FR) and other websites...
When I do watch news it’s Fox...simply because they are the least biased...
Fox is not bad, but they tend to NOT report issues...
“Too many big government, socialist, lefties on Fox News and elsewhere forces many viewers to go elsewhere.”
So just exactly were is “elsewhere?” That said, I must admit that with the exception of Megyn Kelly, FNC’s “hosts” are coupling up to the GOPE tit very early. FNC will change course when the viewership loss starts hitting their revenue stream. The rest have sold out to the RATS no matter the cost.
They all had such golden opportunities to do good..
but chose instead.. to follow the company line..
and will end up forever encrusted with a bias and air of indifference to the truth that would shame a skunk.
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