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Legit broadcast journalism, so important yet nearly dead, last week took another hit when CBS News’ “48 Hours” presented an “exclusive” with the Gotti Family. Three days later, Victoria Gotti’s tell-all was released by Simon & Schuster, the publishing division of CBS.

ABC has Gotcha Gibson. NBC has Williams. CBS has Couric. Fox has............ Nothing. There is no national broadcast coming from Fox news. This needs to change.

Major television networks are considering curtailing coverage of the Democratic National Convention after Monday’s announcement that Barack Obama will accept his party's nomination in a Denver stadium. According to several broadcast executives, the networks will still cover all the major speeches. But beyond that, all options are open as they look for savings to balance out the anticipated costs surrounding the stadium event. The acceptance event is an unexpected departure from the traditional convention hall format they had spent months planning for. Network executives expect Obama’s relatively late-breaking decision to speak at Invesco Field at Mile High, a 76,000-seat football stadium,...

Decreases in Ads and Viewers Mean Change Is in the Air for Big Three NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The big three TV network newscasts lost about 1.2 million viewers last year, and advertising on their three big morning news shows fell to an estimated $1.03 billion. The average viewer is 60 years old, and the demographic marketers most want to reach is more likely to be facing a computer screen than a TV screen when the evening news comes on. Collectively, ABC, NBC and CBS's network newscasts lost about 1.2 million viewers in 2007, according to an analysis of Nielsen...

NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams won the 2007 November sweep period in total viewers and viewers in the key 25-54 demo, barely beating out ABC World News with Charles Gibson. NBC Nightly News held a 100,000-viewer lead over ABC World News in total viewers and a 20,000-viewer lead in the key demo. The numbers for total viewers and demo viewers were the closest they have been in a sweeps period since 2001 and 1996, respectively. The sweeps win by NBC continues a seesaw ratings race that has been going on since early this year, when ABC World News overtook...

A year ago tomorrow, I did a post on the continued decline in evening news viewership at Big Three Networks NBC, ABC, and CBS, and made these observations and predictions about why that decline was taking place, and would continue (some of last year's text was slightly revised): All three nightly broadcasts most likely lose money, when isolated from their morning counterparts (Today, Good Morning America, CBS Morning Show) and their documentary shows (Dateline, 60 Minutes, 20/20, etc.). At a minimum, none makes an acceptable level of profit. BUT, the news operations of each of the Big 3 networks are...

Tuesday, Apr 11Evening News Ratings: Week of April 3 While the industry was focused on NBC and CBS last week, ABC was gaining a few viewers. World News Tonight edged NBC Nightly News for a win in the 25-54 demo last week. (90,000 viewers separated the two programs.) NBC beat ABC by more than 500,000 total viewers. CBS dropped from 7,730,000 the week of March 27 to 6,950,000 last week. For the week of April 3: Total viewers: NBC: 8,360,000 / ABC: 7,830,000 / CBS: 6,950,000 25-54 rating: NBC: 2.2/9 / ABC: 2.3/9 / CBS: 1.8/7 25-54 viewers: NBC: 2,740,000...

WASHINGTON - The building is far from finished, but Newseum curators installed their first artifact Wednesday _ an item so big they'll put up the rest of the museum around it. The world's first news satellite truck was gingerly lowered by a crane into what will be the new home of the museum dedicated to journalism and the First Amendment. The CONUS 1 satellite truck transformed local television news in 1984 by allowing stations to cover national stories without depending on the major networks, said Newseum curator Carrie Christoffersen. Hubbard Broadcasting and CONUS Communications used the first satellite truck. Four...

The trouble with ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and that crowd -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: March 14, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com If you want to know what happened today, you don't have to turn on the tube. I will be happy to tell you right now, no extra charge. Ready? Here goes: What happened today is about what happened yesterday. And the day before. Namely: Four billion people went to work or took care of their kids. They cooked food, paid bills, washed clothes, handled problems, had a few laughs, did most of their chores, and got enough sleep to...

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Feb. 25 (UPI) -- Seventy-seven percent of U.S. adults watch local broadcast news, while 71 percent watch network news, compared to 18 percent who read a national newspaper. A Harris Interactive poll of 2,985 U.S. adults also found 64 percent get their news several times a week or daily by going online, while 63 percent read a local daily newspaper. Fifty-four percent listen to radio news broadcasts, 37 percent listen to talk radio and 19 percent listen to satellite news programming. Those age 59 and older are most likely to rely on local broadcast news, network broadcast or...

Ted Koppel Pens First Piece as 'NY Times' Columnist--Comes Out Swinging By E&P Staff Published: January 29, 2006 12:45 AM ET NEW YORK In his first contribution after being named a New York Times columnist, former ABC newsman Ted Koppel declares, "I cannot help but see that the industry in which I have spent my entire adult life is in decline and in distress." Koppel raps the new "calculated subjectivity" and forced empathy of cable news, and adds: "The accusation that television news has a political agenda misses the point. Right now, the main agenda is to give people what...

Mike Wallace has bemoaned the state of television news in general and of 60 Minutes in particular. In an interview with the Boston Globe, Wallace remarked, "The days of Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley are gone. People still do watch, but it doesn't have the clout that it used to have. I don't know what's going to happen or if there will be an evening news 10 years from now. It's a very expensive operation to keep up." Wallace also lamented the falling ratings of his own 60 Minutes, where he has had the title of co-editor since 1968....

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - CBS is trying to change the face of network news by luring Katie Couric, co-host of NBC's top-rated morning show "Today," to the evening news anchor seat vacated by Dan Rather, the Los Angeles Times said on Friday. Citing senior editorial staffers at both networks, the Times said newly installed CBS News President Sean McManus had determinedly wooed Couric in recent weeks to take over as permanent anchor of the CBS Evening News and that Couric was seriously considering such a move. CBS and NBC both declined comment on the story. Media reports began circulating in...

AudienceIn the 1990s, cable news networks replaced network television for many Americans as the primary source for breaking news, just as in the 1960s television supplanted newspapers. In the new millennium, a broadband-enabled, always-on Internet threatens to usurp those cable news networks. The recent tsunami disaster, The New York Times noted, marked the first time significant numbers of Americans turned to blogs for breaking news. Where does that leave network news? In 2004, the decline in evening news audience continued, as did declines in prime-time magazines. Morning news, in contrast, continued to see its audiences grow. And despite the decision...

The word went out on August 8th that Peter Jennings, an icon of American mainstream media, had died at the age of 67. In this day and age, 67 is well below the average life span in America, and it is unfortunate that the ABC News anchor died prematurely due to lung cancer. Often when someone dies, the initial commentary is rather flattering, as people with the smallest amount of good taste will not speak ill of the dead, especially before they’ve been put in the ground. There was plenty of news coverage of Jennings death, and there were a...

Last Week's Evening News Ratings The NBC Nightly News is the #1 evening newscast, but ABC's World News Tonight is #1 in the coveted 25-54 demographic. Last week's ratings mark "the fifth consecutive week World News Tonight was number one in the key demo," a press release says. "Nightly News displayed its lowest Adult 25-54 delivery since September 1987," ABC noted. Here are the ratings, in total viewers and the 25-54 demo: NBC: 7,900,000 / 2,460,000 ABC: 7,650,000 / 2,760,000 CBS: 6,590,000 / 2,110,000

No less an authority than Sam Donaldson, the television newsman notorious for bellowing hard questions at presidents, has concluded that it's time to blow taps over that most venerable of institutions, the network evening news. Beset by mounting competition, journalistic missteps, changing demographics and the departure of some long-term marquee personalities, the network evening news program is a shell of its former self - no longer attracting the devotion that made it, in the 1960s and '70s, America's dominant information source. "I think it's dead, sorry," Donaldson said during a panel discussion at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in...

Former ABC News reporter/anchor Sam Donaldson is ready to say the last rites for network news because it will soon lose its dominant position as Americans' primary source of news. "I think it's dead. Sorry," he said during a breakfast panel Tuesday at the National Association of Broadcasters' convention in Las Vegas. "The monster anchors are through." Even though 30 million viewers still turn to networks news each night and garner ratings well above CNN and Fox News, networks news operations long ago lost their role as the sources Americans rely on during time of major breaking news, said Donaldson...

America's three original network news shows face the same momentous choice at nearly the same time: Pass the torch to a new anchor who, each hopes, has the gravitas to hold viewers and win new ones, or break with a star-driven tradition developed back in television's Pleistocene era and try something different. This moment of transition - brought on by the departures of Dan Rather at CBS and Tom Brokaw at NBC, and now Peter Jennings's decision to curtail appearances on ABC's news broadcasts - brings into stark relief some of the ongoing challenges for the networks. Even with established...

A tsunami has recently hit TV network news and it may never be the same. A different breed of broadcasters is taking over the news mission. The real news now seems to be delivered in snippets at great speed to enable the anchor to get on with the lusty scandals and celebrity trials that the networks cherish. Television seems dominated these days by cable channels and loud talk shows, hogging a communications medium that was once dominated by the networks. This change in tone and emphasis comes amid the retirements of some of the giants of the business. I refer...

NEW YORK (AP) _ The funeral of Pope John Paul II was both a solemn ritual and a news event _ and television networks that brought it live into American homes hours before the sun rose struggled to reconcile the two. The main broadcast and news networks all had live coverage of the funeral from Rome, its end marking the transition for many Catholics from mourning the pope to the question of who will succeed him. ``This Mass is about to begin,'' CBS anchor Harry Smith said at the outset. ``We're going to try to stay as much out of...

IF you were watching TV news over the past few days, it would be hard to know which story carried more weight: The incomprehensible devastation caused by the tsunami which took (at press time) nearly 30,000 lives, or the equally tragic story of airport delays and lost baggage...< SNIP > In fact, TV news in general treated the disaster like one of those weather stories where the rookie reporter gets battered at the seawall in Canarsie. And every reporter seemed like a rookie this past holiday weekend. Apparently the tsunami would have had to hit Aspen to get the pros...

SO NOW CBS News anchor Dan Rather too is set to leave the evening news show. Rather was at CBS for more than two decades, and was known as “Rather Biased” to his conservative foes. I’m not going to speculate on whether Rather’s decision, or CBS’s decision, was prompted by the controversy when Rather reported a story that was based on forged documents and was damaging to President Bush. Of more importance is the demise of the mainstream news media. For decades, the only way to get television news was to listen to the evening news broadcasts of the three...

At a panel discussion sponored by the New Yorker Magazine on Saturday in New York, NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw lashed out at Internet bloggers in defense of CBS's Dan Rather according to reports from the Associated Press and Reuters.Brokaw compared the bloggers attacks on Dan Rathers '60 Minutes II' reportage about President Bush's National Guard service to a 'political jihad.''What I think is highly inappropriate is what's going on across the internet, a kind of political jihad,' Brokaw said during a panel discussion where he appeared with Dan Rather and Peter Jennings.'It is certainly an attempt to demonize CBS...

I listened to some of that panel discussion on C-Span with Rather, Jennings and Brokaw. While everyone's making a big deal about Brokaw's silly comments about the bloggers (Damn this Jihad by the automobile makers, everyone knows the horse-and-buggy's more reliable!), I think Rather's comments deserve some mocking too. It was hard to hear him from so deep inside his bunker, but he seemed to be saying over and over and over that his troubles are the result of the White House trying to destroy his reputation. Never mind that this thesis directly contradicts Brokaws Jihad-bloggerati thesis -- unless you...

Brokaw, Jennings Show Support for Rather Sat Oct 2, 4:31 PM ET By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer NEW YORK - While acknowledging mistakes in CBS anchor Dan Rather's "60 Minutes" report that questioned President Bush (news - web sites)'s service in the National Guard, competing news anchors Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings offered support Saturday for the beleaguered newsman. Brokaw blasted what he called an attempt to "demonize" CBS and Rather on the Internet, where complaints about the report first surfaced. He said the criticism "goes well beyond any factual information." "What I think is highly inappropriate is what...

Brokaw, Jennings Show Support for Rather Sat Oct 2, 4:31 PM ET By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer NEW YORK - While acknowledging mistakes in CBS anchor Dan Rather's "60 Minutes" report that questioned President Bush (news - web sites)'s service in the National Guard, competing news anchors Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings offered support Saturday for the beleaguered newsman. AP Photo Brokaw blasted what he called an attempt to "demonize" CBS and Rather on the Internet, where complaints about the report first surfaced. He said the criticism "goes well beyond any factual information." "What I think is highly inappropriate...

THE LATEST FROM CBS AND ABC [09/14 07:41 PM] My source familiar with the internal discussions at CBS describes the atmosphere at the network offices tonight as "madness" and "toxic". Apparently a real bunker mentality is setting in; there is reportedly a great deal of anger at ABC for running a scathing report about the memos. I didn't see the ABC report (the CBS report was so shockingly false I needed smelling salts) , but apparently it was a humdinger. Here's a summary of each network from ABC: ABC's Brian Ross interviewed the two experts who CBS hired to validate...

NEW YORK – Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and Peter Jennings playing second fiddle to Brit Hume on a major story would have seemed unthinkable a few years ago. Now that it’s happened – Fox News Channel beating NBC, CBS and ABC in competition during the Republican convention – TV watchers are pondering whether the unprecedented event was epochal or inevitable. Fox’s triumph was one of a handful of intriguing media stories to emerge from the GOP convention – including a resurgent MSNBC, sagging CNN and the fading influence of the broadcasters. When President Bush delivered his acceptance speech Thursday night,...

On his last night in the anchor chair at a political convention, Tom Brokaw of NBC was feeling resigned. The conventions, he said in an interview on Thursday, were mere "infomercials," with little to interest anyone beyond political partisans. "These events are managed down to the last semicolon," said Mr. Brokaw, who is retiring after the election. "That's why I find it hard to climb those stairs and get into the anchor chair anymore." Like Mr. Brokaw, a number of television executives yesterday blamed the Republicans and Democrats for the networks' dwindling convention viewership. But as the Fox News cable...

The cable channel's ratings victory in Republican convention coverage marks a turning point in viewers' shifting allegiances. NEW YORK — Speeches by Laura Bush and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Republican convention helped propel Fox News Channel to a first-ever ratings victory over the broadcast networks Tuesday night, another example of viewers' ongoing migration to cable TV for their political news. From 7 to 8 p.m. Pacific time, when the first lady and Schwarzenegger addressed the crowd in New York, Fox drew an average of 5.2 million viewers, compared with 5.1 million for NBC, 4.4 million for CBS and...

Much that is commonly "understood" among journalists is rarely voiced in public. A pre-convention event this week in Cambridge -- where network anchors went on the record about the partisan and corporate pressures they feel -- was a bracing exception. The Shorenstein Center program was mostly noted in the news for Jim Lehrer's chastisement of the big three anchors for their stinted convention coverage. But even rarer was the theme kicked off by Dan Rather at the start: "Fear has increased in every newsroom in America." The three anchors (Rather, Peter Jennings, and Tom Brokaw) sparred with one another about...

The major TV networks are planning to cut coverage at the political conventions, ignoring major speeches early in the week. The Republican and Democratic parties hope to nudge the networks into more live coverage, but broadcasters have concluded that there will be little news to report. “We know we’re going to cover the nomination and the [nominee’s] speech,” said one network’s spokeswoman, but “we’re not sure about the first two days.” Previously, networks covered each day of the convention. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and President Bush have already locked up their nominations, so the networks don’t feel obliged to cover...

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The broadcast networks are not expected to carry President Bush's primetime speech Monday night, in which he will lay out a "clear strategy" for the future of Iraq. The Bush administration has not requested the Big Four to air live the president's address to an audience at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Penn., scheduled for 8 p.m. EDT on the last Monday of the May sweep, a crucial period when networks chase high ratings in order to set ad rates. NBC, Fox and ABC will proceed with their scheduled programing for the 8-9...

HE double-decker bus pulled up outside the old General Motors building in Midtown Manhattan just after 7:30 on a recent morning and deposited the newest weapons in the long-running battle among the network morning shows: four dozen tourists who had been plucked from the streets and restaurants of Times Square, beginning as early as the previous night. They had been ferried to the G.M. building, on Fifth Avenue near the southeast corner of Central Park, to serve as an instant, high-spirited outdoor audience for "The Early Show," the latest offering by CBS News in a time slot where the network...

Dear Dan, Peter and Tom, I know you've been wondering where viewers like me have gone. I've read some of the theories put forth in recent studies, and I need to set the record straight. We aren't too busy. We haven't stopped watching nightly news. No, most of us - people you would label as conservatives - have stopped watching because you don't present our perspective anymore. It wasn't that long ago that we welcomed you into our homes every evening, and, whether the news was negative (the downing of PanAm 103) or positive (the success of a space shuttle...

Fox News outdraws CNN, MSNBC for Rice testimony Reuters, 04.09.04, 4:36 PM ET LOS ANGELES, April 9 (Reuters) - Fox News garnered a wide margin over CNN among audiences watching Thursday's testimony by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, according to data released on Friday. Citing figures from Nielsen Media Research, the networks said Fox News drew an average of 1.921 million total viewers in the period from 9 a.m. to noon ET on Thursday, ahead of CNN's 1.228 million and MSNBC's 470,000. CNN is a unit of Time Warner Inc. (nyse: TWX...

The framers of our Constitution gave carte blance protection to “speech” and “the press”. They did not grant that anyone was then in possession of complete and unalloyed truth, and it was impossible that they should be able to a priori institutionalize the truth of a future such human paragon even if she/he/it were to arrive. At the time of the framing, the 1830s advent of mass marketing was in the distant future. Since that era, journalism has positioned itself as the embodiment of nonpartisan truth-telling, and used its enormous propaganda power to make the burden of proof of any ...

It is quite clear by now that the media elites believe they can oust President Bush by orchestrating a campaign against him that is unmatched in its scope and single-mindedness of purpose. Rather than changing their ways in response to the increasing criticism they are receiving because of their pervasive liberal bias, they are becoming more determined and more partisan than ever in their drive to install a far-left Senator with little experience and even less principle as president. The battle for the presidency will be between these liberal media moguls aided by the far-left anti-war, anti-Western radicals and average...

NEW YORK, March 11, 2004 - Mainstream news organizations may "filter" the news, as President George W. Bush claimed late last year, but not to omit good stories from their Iraq coverage, but to broadcast more negative news about the president himself, according to a report released today by MediaChannel.org and Media Tenor. The report reveals a strong negative cast to ABC, CBS and NBC news coverage of the president thus far in 2004. Meanwhile, Senator John Kerry, Bush's certain opponent for November, has received more positive coverage by the same three networks. According to data compiled for MediaChannel.org by...

Denver Post al knight Every silver lining has a cloud By Al Knight Denver Post Editorial Board Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - It's been widely reported that the news departments at the three major television networks have been having a very tough time since the beginning of the Iraqi war. CBS and ABC have fared worse than NBC, but all of them have suffered to some extent. Instead of bigger audiences for news programs about the war, the number of viewers has declined significantly. Public opinion polls don't reveal the precise reasons for the response - or lack of it....

Viewers are increasingly tuning out the broadcast networks' evening newscasts, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to splash on Monday. CBS and ABC together lost nearly 2 million viewers, or a combined 10%, during the first two-week Iraq war period, according to NIELSEN MEDIA RESEARCH! [Only NBC recorded a slight increase.] "Going back the 15 years that I have researched it," said Andrew Tyndall, of the TYNDALL REPORT, which monitors network newscasts, "the networks always show an increase of about 10 percent in viewing during heavy news periods. This would be an unprecedented event." MORE NYT's Bill Carter has prepared...

NEW YORK, March 11, 2004 - Mainstream news organizations may "filter" the news, as President George W. Bush claimed late last year, but not to omit good stories from their Iraq coverage, but to broadcast more negative news about the president himself, according to a report released today by MediaChannel.org and Media Tenor. The report reveals a strong negative cast to ABC, CBS and NBC news coverage of the president thus far in 2004. Meanwhile, Senator John Kerry, Bush's certain opponent for November, has received more positive coverage by the same three networks. According to data compiled for MediaChannel.org by...

Boycott News Advertisers For Biased Election News CoverageAs many of you are aware, CBS spiked the biased mini-series "The Reagans" when Americans threatened to boycott CBS advertisers (although pay-channel Showtime purchased it later).  I believe that this tactic can be used to eliminate some of the media bias going into the the critical, life-or-death 2004 presidential election.  Here is what I am proposing.Our lives, essentially, depend on President Bush's re-election -- Kerry will turn the War on Terror into a dangerous PC farce.  We can't take that risk.  However, the media has admitted (see here) that it will be actively...