Posted on 06/03/2012 5:50:37 AM PDT by New Jersey Realist
CNN in May suffered its worst month for ratings in nearly 20 years, according to Nielsen figures, and has lost 50 percent of its audience in the past 12 months.
The cable network pioneered 24-hour news in the 1980s and for years was the top-rated news channel, but it has lost audience to Fox News and MSNBC in recent years and now lags both competitors in attracting viewers.
CNN’s average audience in May fell to 388,000, with only 113,000 in the 25-54 age bracket that advertisers covet. Fox’s average was 1.65 million, and MSNBC’s was 658,000.
“It’s really a bloodletting — there’s no other way to describe it,” said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University.
“They are trying to stick to old-fashioned, unbiased news broadcasting when their rivals have worked out that to draw an audience when there aren’t major stories breaking you need to do the opposite.”
Piers Morgan, who was hired 18 months ago for the 9 p.m. hour, drew an average of 417,000 viewers in May, the worst ratings for that slot since the early 1990s, according to The Independent, a London-based website. When he took over in early 2011, his predecessor in that slot, Larry King, was averaging around 600,000 viewers.
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper has lost a quarter of his viewers in the past 12 months, and ratings for Wolf Blitzer’s two-hour “Situation Room” are down by more than half.
“They are trying to stick to old-fashioned, unbiased news broadcasting when their rivals have worked out that to draw an audience when there aren’t major stories breaking you need to do the opposite.”
You can throw out the critical thinking in this article. Who are they trying to convince? Themselves?
Most of CNN viewers comes from the Atlanta Airport. Nobody watches it there either.
“Maybe Bain could do a buyout and rejigger things at CNN.
It worked at Burger King... “
The problem is that it’s been rejiggered too much already. Turd Turner’s baby is going to die, and none too soon. I’d like to celebrate all of their on-screen “talent” rummaging through trash cans to make a living.
Sure he is. But I can't recall anyone who supports or defends communism who isn't nuts.
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