Posted on 05/17/2007 5:48:47 PM PDT by LdSentinal
Lost amid the hoopla over the declining viewership for Katie Couric’s newscast has been a perhaps even more surprising development: The nightly news at her old network isn’t doing so well, either.
A week after Couric’s “CBS Evening News” dipped to its worst viewership ever, NBC’s “Nightly News with Brian Williams” matched its worst viewership among adults 25-54 in at least the past 20 years, since Nielsen began using people meters in 1987.
“Nightly” averaged 2.18 million 25-54s last week, the week ended May 13. The newscast also saw its total viewers average slide to its lowest point in months, 7.16 million.
That’s a 15 percent decline compared with the same week a year ago. By comparison, ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson,” which finished first with an average 7.91 million viewers, was up 8 percent over the same time last year.
There’s likely no one reason for the slide, but it’s notable because NBC had been on top for years, up until Gibson began moving ahead three months ago.
Certainly part of NBC's slide could be the overall dip in TV viewership that's spreading across primetime and other dayparts. That's seen a number of top-rated programs, including NBC’s “Today,” decline.
But it could also be signaling a longer-term shift in viewing from the networks' nightly news shows.
The backbone of that audience has long been older viewers, those over 50. They've been the least inclined to follow younger people to cable and the internet and other new media options. But they might now be doing so.
Year to date, NBC’s newscast is down 6 percent in total viewers and CBS is down 5 percent. ABC is up 3 percent.
Yet even ABC is struggling with the viewers who matter most, those 25-54s, and last week Gibson too was near a record low.
One final reason for NBC's dip could be a lingering backlash over the network's use of footage of Virginia Tech shooter Seung Hui Cho’s final diatribe last month. The decision to air the footage was met with some public outrage, followed by weeks of debate over whether the network made the right move. Journalists agreed that it had, but the general public was more divided.
Though such things are rarely reflected so quickly in the ratings, NBC’s telecast has dipped a lot in the past few weeks; it usually takes the nightly news shows months to see any sort of up or down trend.
In the past two weeks, “Nightly” has gone from 7.89 million total viewers the week ended April 29 to 7.16 million last week, a difference of 730,000. ABC and CBS were both down fewer than 300,000 in that span.
Brian Williams always gives me the feeling that he’s a man who is desperate to have people not find out how stupid he really is.
“HERE THIS?”
Achhhh!
Of course, that should be “hear this!”
Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Let's see...total viewership of 7.16 million, of which 2.18 million was 25-54. Since "Nightly's" viewership among the under 25 demographic is approximately zero, that means that roughly 70% of their audience is over 55.
That's a viewership profile that's doomed to fail over the long run.
About time these media clowns had to pay the piper for something.
IMHO, all such graphs should bottom at zero and have an arbitrary timescale, rather than a cherrypick.
Nonetheless, the point is still obvious: the DinoMedia is dying.
Bill O’Reilly has been saying for a while now NBC news is falling through the floor, because of their incredible liberal bias and disrespect for the troops.
Okay. I’m sold. Good post.
I agree.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.... thanks, you’ve brightened my day...
LOL, seems that just about everyone in the old media worked for a democrat at one time or another.
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