Fewer people turning to evening 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.

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."

"but they can't report that..."

They cannot report what they do not, will not, know or understand, namely that Dan Blather, Peter Jennitup, and Tom
Broken have been, are being discredited with much of what comes out of their mouthes. People are turning to Fox, internet, and conservative radio.

These people at the major cables and The Times, remind me of the socialites on the Titanic. All the evidence of going down is there, but they cannot believe it could happen--not to them!!.

vaudine

The Slimes misses the point again, that's a perfect record, for the Slimes.

The country is turning conservative, and the editorial staff of the times is either blind to that fact or they are in denial and not taking their medications. The liberals have a habit of crying out in the night for an answer when the answer is right in front of their face.

We live in the best of "the information age". We can get news on stories from all kinds of different sources. They don't have a monopoly anymore. FreeRepublic is my choice, and many other people as well. I can tune in to Fox for a fairer and more balanced approach to my headline news. The dirtbag, commie, propagandists are getting a little dose of "what goes around, comes around" and the taste is bad, and they don't like it. Well, boo hoo buttholes, you had this coming for a long time. A free market and good old American know how started delivering the truth and it will continue to drive your precious market share into the John Crapper.

The elitist policy continues. "Why aren't you watching us, we have so much to offer". In free market delivery it matters not your quantity, but your quality. If the customer isn't buying maybe, just maybe it's your product that sucks. And these intellect libbies are supposed to be sooooo freaking smart. These people need a simple lesson in "supply & demand", and they need to quit their bitching. I'd rather pee on their Gucci loafers than listen to their whining.

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