Suffering News Burnout? The Rest of America Is, Too (CBS,ABC,CNN,MSNBC all way down, only Fox is up)

The New York Times ^ | August 11, 2003 | Jim Rutenberg

[Timesink]

---

August 11, 2003

Suffering News Burnout? The Rest of America Is, Too

By JIM RUTENBERG

as the nation's television audience burned out on serious news?

Kuni Takahashi/Boston Herald, via Reflex News; Reuters

Despite a number of serious news events playing out this summer — like the war in Iraq, above, and the civil war in Liberia — television news programs have been drawing fewer viewers than last year.

American soldiers are dying in Iraq almost daily, questions are continuing to swirl around the Bush administration's case for the March invasion and United States 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 suddenly 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 Chandra A. Levy.

"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 Company, is down nearly 600,000 from last year. Among the broadcasters, only NBC, which is a unit of the General Electric Company, 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 Corporation.

"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, `O.K., that's enough news for a while.' "

Summer TV viewing, of course, is always lighter than other times of year, as people find other things to do. And, because TV audience analysis remains an inexact science, with no hard data on what motivates people in their TV-watching decisions, 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 and advertising executives — especially since 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 Corporation and G.E., fell from 254,000 last summer to 197,000 this one — which is down from 1.3 million during the war.

The New York Times

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 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; 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 Mr. 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 United States military's killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein.

Mr. Wakshlag said the audience for the miners was probably higher because the nation had been following their plight over the course of several days. The successful attack on the Hussein brothers, "obviously was not a large-scale, unfolding, dramatic event," he said. "It was pretty much straightforward coverage of the fact that they were caught, which is by and large something you learn quickly and you don't have to stay and watch a whole bunch of stuff all day and get glued to the set."

Though he took heart that CNN's ratings were up from the summer of 2001, Mr. Wakshlag acknowledged, "I'm not sure that national import and national interest always correspond."

There are two anomalies in the ratings that dispel the theory that perhaps the American public is turning a blind eye to the world: the audience increases for "NBC Nightly News" and the Fox News Channel, the respective leaders of their fields.

According to Andrew Tyndall, publisher of the Tyndall Report, which is a newsletter that tracks the network evening newscasts, NBC has given the heaviest coverage of Iraq of the three newscasts in recent weeks. Fox News Channel has not exactly shied away from Iraq, either.

Executives at Fox News Channel and NBC said they concluded that it was better to devote more time where more context can be given to Iraq news rather than less. If boiled down to mere headlines, they said, that news can seem relentlessly negative and may turn off viewers.

"Other networks have come on the air every day and they give you a countdown or count-up of the bad things that have happened — whether it's military deaths or civilian deaths," said Bill Shine, the executive producer of Fox News Channel. "That is important, and it's news America should know. But, there is some progress going on in that country."

CNN and MSNBC dispute that Fox News is devoting more time to Iraq than they are. And competitors of NBC News denied they were being overly negative, saying that if NBC News is covering Iraq any more than they are, it is only by a marginal degree.

"I think that reality can get to viewers at times," said Mr. Murphy at CBS. "But I don't think our coverage is negative or relentlessly negative. We tell people what we have. Some days it's negative, some days it's not."

It remains unclear whether the big celebrity-driven news narratives of the moment — the Kobe Bryant sexual-assault case and Arnold Schwarzenegger's announced gubernatorial run in California — will change the current ratings equation.

On cable news, Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC saw spikes in their average daily audiences on Wednesday — the day Mr. Bryant had his first court appearance and Mr. Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy. But the gains were not huge.

Reliable data on the evening newscasts for last Wednesday were unavailable.

Either way, Mr. Murphy said, he did not expect the ratings funk to continue for very long. "People come to watch the news when they need the news," he said, adding, "and they will need it again."

[undeniable logic]

This is an interesting article (even with the initial jabs at Bush). I am a huge news junkie (more than anyone I know) and yet over the past few months, I have been watching less and less news. I guess I am a bit burned out myself. Note: this does not stop me from checking out freerepublic for a couple of hours a day - what can I say, I am hooked!

[harpo11]

Suffering Liberal News Burnout Only. Because it is naive, insulting, sneering, denigrating and propagandist in nature. And furthermore, the mainstream news outlets obviously are working overtime for the benefit of the democrat party.

[ontos-on]

Yeah; Hannity is not smart enough to shut his mouth and let an intelligent guest make an interesting point. He bounces over the answer to his questions. He does it continuously with Gingrich--who can be overlong--but at least has a brain and tries to make a point. I felt sorry for the arab he had on TV tonight opposite Ward Connelly. The poor guy got off two sentences and was not even allowed to make a point. Bango.

Hannity repeats his rote argumentations now just as he did regarding Clinton over and over again.

Tonight, he was so full of himself that he told [unasked] Tom Clancy about how he himself composes his own "books". Clancy laughed politely [but with just a hint of sarcasm] when Sean "disclosed" that he dictates his books on the way home in the car. Indeed.

[ontos-on]

"deep voiced girly boys"

LOL & ROTF

[GOPJ]

You "get it":

Only NBC Nightly News and the Fox News Channel are thriving. Funny how they're the only two TV news outlets that aren't overtly hostile to conservatives.

[Grampa Dave]

The American public with the except of the 36% which are brain damaged, the lunatic libs, are turning away from ABCNNBCBS.

Those of us, who are not permanently brain damaged don't want the DNC mantras and lies posing as news.

[Grampa Dave]

There is a really interesting thread on FR at this time that sheds a lot of light on this win/win for conservatives.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/962324/posts

Screwtape #7: The Right Wing Media Cartel
The Screwtape Reports ^ | 08/11/2003 | Dave Screwtape (aka Adam Graham)


Posted on 08/11/2003 7:27 PM PDT by Keyes2000mt


Report #7 From: Dave Screwtape

To: House Democrats, Senate Democrats, Democratic National Committee, Our Media Allies

Subject: The Ring Wing Media Cartel

The second greatest danger we face comes from what was once very friendly territory, the media. It used to be that we had to worry about Republican newspapers, but as less Americans had time for newspapers, television became the media of choice.

Television was largely our domain. I'd say from the Reagan Recession in the '80s until the late '90s, we had our hay day. We controlled the networks and CNN, the only all news network. The only problem we had was that interesting television required a debate. However, to our advantage, we wrote the questions. That's not to say that our guys were not challenged. Far from it. Like the WWF, we had to make television news look interesting and real.

[Timesink]

Thanks Grampa Dave! I wouldn't have seen that thread without your ping!

[Timesink]

So I thought it was cool that moi and approximately 500 people got to tell the Nielsen's what nearly a million people in the Pittsburgh metro area were watching.

The Nielsens are notoriously unreliable measurements of TV viewing. First off, you simply can't get within a statistically acceptable margin of error when sampling so few people in the first place. Second, the price to sample more people is astronomical, because it's not like a regular poll where you just make phone calls and ask people a few questions; you have to tally those diaries by hand. And third, people do an awful job of keeping accurate diaries. They lie about what they watch, saying they watched a show they actually missed just because they want it to stay on the air; they'll say they didn't watch a show they really did, just because it stars a person they don't like, etc. Even Nielsen's "people meters," electronic boxes that sit on top of the TV set in some family's homes in major markets, are only marginally better, because every member of the family has to use a remote control to "log in" and "log out" every time they enter or leave the room; they often forget, and often simply lie to the "people meter" the same way they lie in the diaries. And Nielsen completely ignores all out-of-home viewership: bars, offices, dorms, etc. In short, Nielsen's numbers are total crap by 21st century statistical standards.

In fact, they're so bad that all the major networks have either quit subscribing to the Nielsen service at one point or another, or at least threatened to, and tried to create their own measurement systems. The problem is that nobody's ever been able to come up with anything better that isn't so expensive as to be cost-prohibitive. So they invariably come slinking back to Nielsen. They suck, but if they didn't exist, the networks and advertisers would have nothing to base advertising prices on at all. Thus, everyone just keeps on playing the game, since the only alternative is a total collapse of advertiser-supported television.

(The general trends, of course, are true regardless: Even with such a bad system as Nielsen's, Fox News would not come in first place every single day if they weren't truly watched by more people than CNN and MSNBC. The question is, does FNC get 1.5 million viewers at, say, 9 pm? Or is it actually more like 5 million? Or only 500,000? Nobody really knows.)

[Timesink]

I kind of miss the guy who "goes straight for the magazine" while HIS overspending yuppie wife heads for Arts and Leisure. Ick.

"She goes for the Gay Civil Unions section, and I head straight - no pun intended! - for Maureen Dowd's latest pining-for-Michael-Douglas article!"

[Timesink]

Drudge Radio has a European news clip of Blather comparing the post-9/11 US social climate to that of the practice of the sainted Mandela necklacing people who didn't thing Mandela was a saint.

Dan Rather said something negative about Nelson Mandela? That's news in itself!

[speedy]

Hilarious. Thanks for perfectly capturing that little Sulzberger demon seed at her sneering best.

[speedy]

The ads only confirm what we already knew about the Times's delusional world of trust-fund families fighting for leftist causes from within leafy Victorian mansions. Don't forget the smug nitwit who tells us in airy tones that the only thing she enjoys more than DOING the crossword puzzles is actually FINISHING them. A barrel of fun she sure is.

[jimt]

People aren't suffering a news burnout - they're suffering a BS burnout !

[finnman69]

http://www.polipundit.com/
Monday, August 11, 2003

Fuzzy Math

Just before the 2002 elections, a poll of likely voters showed Republicans surging ahead of Democrats by 7 points on the generic congressional ballot. The Old York Times buried the number in paragraph 6 of a story entitled "In Poll, Americans Say Both Parties Lack Clear Vision." Some analysts, like, ahem, me, made much more of the poll numbers and correctly predicted the GOP's election day sweep.

Another Old York Times reporter makes a similar mistake today and misses an obvious conclusion when analyzing survey results. Here's an excerpt from a story on TV news ratings:
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 Corporation and G.E., 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 the average of 3.2 million people who watched Fox News each evening during the thick of the Iraq fighting.
Let's see now. CNN lost 89,000 viewers in a year. MSNBC lost 57,000 viewers in a year. That's a total of 146,000 viewers that the two networks lost. In the same period, Fox News gained 141,000 viewers. What on earth could these numbers mean?

Only a reporter for the Old York Times could fail to see the logical conclusion: Fox News is stealing viewers from CNN and MSNBC!
posted by PoliPundit at 4:37 PM

[Calvin Locke]

Dan Rather said something negative about Nelson Mandela?

Dan Rather didn't mention Mandela, but did say he, Dan and others that speak out against Bush, feared "necklacing" and for their lives.

How the FCC allows CBS to be so irresponsible in allowing an apparent mental case on to host what should be non-fiction, is beyond my comprehension.

[billhilly]

Better Homes and Gardens is a good choice if you have cable. Bonanza can still be seen in reruns. The discovery channel is cool, and the world series of poker on ESPN is an absolute hoot.

[Wright is right!]

"And third, people do an awful job of keeping accurate diaries. They lie about what they watch, saying they watched a show they actually missed just because they want it to stay on the air; they'll say they didn't watch a show they really did, just because it stars a person they don't like, etc."

Sometimes they "lie," sometimes they are just truly ignorant. That is - they sometimes really don't KNOW who or what they are watching. Which is why we now have "bugs" - the station logos that are ALWAYS on in the lower right portion of the screen during programs (they go away during spot breaks). It's because many viewers simply don't know what station they're watching, so they have to be constantly reminded. Viewers can be astonishingly ignorant.

It's even worse with RADIO diaries, where often a listener will fill in the entire week's diary at the end of the week, with little regard for accuracy. Sometimes people will fill in the diary with "the correct answer," one they think will make them appear hipper to the diary tabulators. Public radio always appears to have more listeners than it actually does because of this phenom.

It's long been known that if you want an accurate picture of behavior, you measure what people DO, not what they SAY they do. This was the point of the Pipple Meters - measuring actual viewing. But it's certainly cumbersome and never totally accurate.

One company came up with a system of measuring in-CAR listening - made possible by the fact that all radios emit a weak signal related to the station they're tuned to. In-car listening estimates never strongly correlated with the reported in-home listening diaries of the Arbitron system.

So it's really a guessing - or best-guessing - game.

Michael

[GOPJ]

bump

[kcar]

FoxNews is the only one that's passable to many people who have dropped out of the left-wing propaganda circle. Buy they really aren't right-wing like the lefties say. I'm right-wing and Fox pisses me off many times and bores me alot oftener. They just happen to be the first to recognize and partly court the broken glass crowd, but no question they need to improve or get beat by a newcomer.