Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my FoxFan list. *Warning: This can be a high-volume ping list at times.
Posted on 08/11/2003 7:36:29 AM PDT by bedolido
Has the nation's television audience burned out on serious news?
American soldiers are dying in Iraq almost daily; questions continue to swirl around the Bush administration's case for the invasion there in March; and U.S. Marines are poised off the coast of Liberia. At home, decisions by the Supreme Court prompted national debates on affirmative action and gay rights; a basketball star stands accused of sexual assault; and the California governorship hangs in the balance. And yet, television news viewers are tuning out.
The total evening news audience on the broadcast networks has been lower this summer than it was during the summer of 2001, when the pressing stories of the day were shark attacks and the whereabouts of Chandra Levy, the Washington intern who was found dead more than a year later.
"CBS Evening News" has been particularly hard hit; in late June, CBS, which is owned by Viacom Inc., had one of its least-watched weeks for its nightly news report in at least a decade, and perhaps in its history, according to Nielsen Media Research. The audience of ABC, which is owned by the Walt Disney Co., is down nearly 600,000 from last year. Among the broadcasters, only NBC, which is a unit of the General Electric Co., has bucked the tune-out trend this summer.
The collective cable news audience, meanwhile, is slightly smaller so far this summer than it was this time last year, despite gains for the Fox News Channel, which is owned by the News Corp.
"People have been through two years of very heavy-duty, stressful news, from Sept. 11 through the war with Iraq," said Jim Murphy, executive producer of the "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather." "I think there's probably just a little bit of a break-taking going on across the spectrum."
Steve Sternberg, senior vice president for audience research at Magna Global USA in New York, an advertising buying agency, takes a similar view. "Considering how much news there was with the Iraq war," he said, "people are probably just taking a breath and saying, 'OK, that's enough news for a while."'
Summer TV viewing is always lighter than other times of the year. And, because TV audience analysis remains an inexact science, no one can say for certain why news ratings are lower this summer than in recent years.
But the overall diminished state of the television news ratings has come as a surprise to some executives especially because it comes after impressive audience figures, at least for cable news, during the main military action in Iraq back in the spring.
According to Nielsen Media Research, about 24.1 million people watched the three evening newscasts each night, on average, in June and July, compared with 25.2 million during the two-month period last year and 24.3 million during June and July 2001.
As for cable, CNN's daily audience during June and July was, on average, 413,000 people, down from 502,000 last summer, according to Nielsen Media Research, and much smaller than its audience of 2.5 million during the thick of the war. The daily average audience for MSNBC, which is owned by the Microsoft Corp. and GE, fell from 254,000 last summer to 197,000 this one -- which is down from 1.3 million during the war.
And while the average daily audience at Fox News grew to 753,000, compared with 612,000 during last summer's two-month period, the audience was nowhere near the average of 3.2 million people who watched Fox News each evening during the thick of the Iraq fighting.
Some news executives said that many viewers may see this summer as nothing more than the end of the big Iraq story that they so eagerly watched in the spring. Others said this summer's more serious-seeming news events were, in fact, less compelling than those of last summer: the disappearance of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart from her Utah home; the abduction and killing of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion in California; the rescue of nine miners from a Pennsylvania coal shaft; and the fatal shooting of two people at the Los Angeles International Airport and the killing of the gunman by an El Al security guard.
Among the top news stories this summer, "none of these have the broad appeal and emotional tug that a Samantha Runnion, Elizabeth Smart, the miner rescue or the airport shootings had at that time," said Jack Wakshlag, head of research for the Turner Broadcasting System, which manages CNN for their parent company, AOL Time Warner Inc.
CNN's highest-rated day during June and July last year, for example, was July 27, when an average audience of about 1 million people tuned in to learn about the rescue of the coal miners, according to Wakshlag's Nielsen Media Research data.
This summer, CNN's most-watched day during the comparable two-month period was July 22, when an average audience of about 650,000 tuned in for news about the U.S. military's killing of Odai and Qusai Hussein.
Still, the big celebrity-driven news narratives of the moment -- the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case and Arnold Schwarzenegger's gubernatorial run -- could change the ratings equation.
On cable news, Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC saw spikes in their average daily audiences on Wednesday -- the day Bryant had his first court appearance and Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy. But the gains were not huge.
Reliable data on the evening newscasts for Wednesday were unavailable.
Either way, Murphy said he did not expect the ratings funk to continue for long. "People come to watch the news when they need the news," he said. "And they will need it again."
....or reading the Times as well.
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my FoxFan list. *Warning: This can be a high-volume ping list at times.
I might watch if television reported the news.
Until then, there is FReeRepublic!
HELP! I'M LAUGHING TO DEATH
People NEED steam looms! They'll be back!
Or:
(whine) Nobody is LISTENING to us!!
Hmmmmmm.....Why is this the only growth statistic? Inquiring reporters ought to know....
hehe -- sounds like something a smack dealer might say
Ouch. Bring back Donohue.
One need only look at how institutions like the Times frame the question to see why they are losing influence.
LIBERAL MEDIA IS A DINOSAUR WAITING TO BE BURIED.
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.