

CNN lost “almost half” of their viewers in the last year - cwan
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/cnn-lost-almost-half-of-their-viewers-in-the-last-year-89533942.html

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carbocation
My problem with CNN is that it provides nothing of substance. I don't need the
off-the-cuff opinions of their "journalists" during news events. That's
armchair stuff.

As a consumer of news, I want/need someone to break a story that took days,
weeks, or months to construct. I can voice my own post-debate opinions - I
don't need theirs. I can find feel-good/feel-bad stories in my own
neighborhood - I don't need theirs. I don't need Anderson Cooper to give lip
service to "keeping them honest." I need journalism from which I learn
something.

~~~
mschwar99
And its fair to speculate that this lack of substance is contributing to the
ratings decline by making places like CNN boring or immediately
interchangeable with the web. Why spend your time watching what feels like
"easily" produced news that often consists of summaries of YouTube/Twitter or
a split screen featuring spin from either party made of pure opinion and
devoid of critical analysis?

There is no production value in either of those categories that would build
brand identity or loyalty from its consumers. Without actual journalism a news
source is just a broadcast medium for press releases and there is nothing
stopping consumers from tuning out or finding an interchangeable service.

There probably isn't a big enough market of people that care to sustain it,
but it would be wonderful if a rainbow pot of gold could fund a 24/7 channel
consisting of Frontline and This American Life caliber journalism.

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jswinghammer
If you watch "The Daily Show" it gives you all the reason in the world to not
watch CNN. There is pretty much stupidity on there at all hours. We turned on
something on CNN this morning and my wife groaned at some stupid pun and my
two year old daughter walked up to her and tried to comfort saying "OK? OK?"

It was one for a minute accidentally and we encountered serious stupidity.
That's somewhat impressive.

~~~
lenley
CNN is incredibly afraid to call politicos out on their sheer stupidity,
group-think and hypocrisy.

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mahmud
BBC, al-Jazeera, and the Economist, for my institutional news. Democracy Now
for my outsider news. The rest are just fluff that I come across but never
seek out intentionally (NYT, Harper's,New Yorker, etc.)

CJR for the meta stuff.

CNN, Time, NewsWeek, etc. are just crap.

NPR is excellent infotainment, but not news.

------
niravs
It's amazing how much CNN is obsessed with Twitter!

~~~
flatline
Most of CNN's programming caters to a certain age group that probably does
not, by and large, know how to use a computer. You just have to watch the ads
to get a feel for their target audience. Fox and MSNBC have much more diverse
programming. It's been a long time since I saw anything of interest on CNN.

------
tibbon
Unfortunately I have to think that this will only make CNN think that they
lost viewers because they were covering too much 'news' and not enough
commentary, opinion and soft stories. What it should be of course is a wakeup
call to them to because a decent news network again.

The lack of content of the news when I look at CNN vs BBC/PBS/NYT/WSJ/NPR is
appalling. They have simply forgotten how to offer a decent view of things
that actually matter in the world.

------
hnsummary
Article Summary:

MSNBC and CNN are both lagging behind Fox News in the ratings. Fox is the
second highest ranks cable network in prime time, while CNN ranks 21st and
MSNBC is 25th. CNN began it’s sharp decline in ratings during the first
quarter of 2010 with the main hosts loosing half their viewers in a year. This
is despite recent newsworthy evens such as the earthquake in Haiti and health
care reform.

[http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/30/cnn-lost-almost-half-of-
thei...](http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/30/cnn-lost-almost-half-of-their-
viewers-in-the-last-year/)

------
rooshdi
Something tells me the end of the recession had an effect on this ratings
decline.

~~~
jaekwon
the end?

~~~
rooshdi
Yes, technically it has been over for quite some time:

[http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bernanke-declares-the-
reces...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bernanke-declares-the-recession-
over-2009-09-15)

~~~
jswinghammer
I guess if you cook the books you can make them say anything. It's hard to
take anything Bernanke says seriously. He didn't see this crisis coming and he
was never right about anything before. Why would we think he's suddenly right
about something?

~~~
jbooth
Recession has a definition, and it ends with GDP growth above 0.000001%, not
employment or consumer confidence or anything else.

~~~
jswinghammer
Who defines GDP and how are they doing it? That's what actually matters. You
can define your way out of any situation-it doesn't mean it actually changed
for the better.

~~~
rooshdi
Please read this too:
<http://useconomy.about.com/od/grossdomesticproduct/p/GDP.htm>

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jsz0
At the risk of generalizing I think the type of people who watch cable news
tend to want something to get upset about. They want drama, fear, shouting,
and big loud opinions all presented to them in a way where they can feel
smarter without actually understanding much of anything. Pretty much the same
reason conservative talk radio is so popular. I suspect most normal middle
America sort of people are happy getting their news from morning shows or the
network news. Liberals tend to read either online or paper.

~~~
roboneal
So based on that, was CNN twice as full of "drama, fear, shouting" last year?

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elblanco
It's amazing how I can watch CNN for 4-5 hours and get almost no information
at all from the broadcast.

At least with Fox, I can see how somebody who's into that kind of thing can
feel like they are getting information (even if it's usually wrong or
overblown).

------
ck2
Their CNN Live (online) was halfway decent until they suddenly fired all the
hosts last year just after their big website revamp.

It was a really strange move to make all that investment to be the online
leader and then threw it away.

------
jpcx01
Nobody likes watching stuff in the mushy middle. Rightwing wants Fox news,
Leftwing wants MSNBC. Always better to specialize.

~~~
gnosis
_"Leftwing wants MSNBC"_

Are you kidding? MSNBC is even more right wing than CNN. PBS is about it, as
far as mainstream TV news goes. And even they are pretty much in the center,
rather than on the left.

For some good left-wing media try Democracy Now!, Free Speech Radio News, and
FAIR's Counterspin. Some college radio stations, WBAI in NYC, and Pacifica
Radio afilliates are also good.

My problem with CNN and MSNBC is that both of them tried to follow Fox to the
right once Fox became popular. A losing strategy if they were after Fox's
right-wing audience, since they were clearly not as committed as Fox was to
being further to the right than any other station on TV. They should have
moved left instead, and provided a real alternative.

~~~
btipling
Yeah Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are right wing. O_o

~~~
jbooth
Two commentators do not weigh the same as an entire multi-thousand employee
network.

~~~
btipling
It's two hours of liberal opinion news during primetime. They are the flagship
opinion shows on msnbc. But yea, they are just two people out of thousands
that work at msnbc.

~~~
jbooth
2 hours during primetime is still less than 24 hours, all the time. Hell, Fox
News employs a convicted traitor (Ollie North) just becasue liberals don't
like him.

