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CNN lost “almost half” of their viewers in the last year
- jpcx01 17y agoNobody likes watching stuff in the mushy middle. Rightwing wants Fox news, Leftwing wants MSNBC. Always better to specialize.
- David 17y agoNot that I disagree with your point, but "[...] CNN ranks 21st, while MSNBC lags even further behind at 25th." Doesn't sound like specialization is working well for MSNBC, to me.
- gnosis 17y ago"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 17y agoYeah Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are right wing. O_o
- jbooth 17y agoTwo commentators do not weigh the same as an entire multi-thousand employee network.
- btipling 17y agoIt'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 17y ago2 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.
- astrec 17y agoI guess you're being voted down because: a) overt politics doesn't mix well with HN, and b) left/right is a matter of perspective. As an observer from a country where the most conservative Prime Minister since federation was still some way to the left of Obama, I'd characterise both MSNBC and CNN as occupying the centre left of the right. In contrast, my Republican father in law considers them pinko-commie bastards. Who is right?
- RareApparel 17y agoThe problem you have with the flow of CNN and MSNBC towards Fox is the same problem I have with televised news of all sorts. TV as a medium does not do a good job of informing people much of anything outside of what it takes to keep them glued to the screen: flying infographics, plenty of hyperbole and lowbrow opinion.
- carbocation 17y agoMy 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 17y agoAnd 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.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- rooshdi 17y agoSomething tells me the end of the recession had an effect on this ratings decline.
- jaekwon 17y agothe end?
- rooshdi 17y agoYes, technically it has been over for quite some time: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bernanke-declares-the-recession-over-2009-09-15 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bernanke-declares-the-reces...
- jswinghammer 17y agoI 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 17y agoRecession has a definition, and it ends with GDP growth above 0.000001%, not employment or consumer confidence or anything else.
- jswinghammer 17y agoWho 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 17y agoPlease read: http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RS22793_20080123.pdf http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RS22793_20080123.pdf
- jswinghammer 17y agoIf 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 17y agoCNN is incredibly afraid to call politicos out on their sheer stupidity, group-think and hypocrisy.
- niravs 17y agoIt's amazing how much CNN is obsessed with Twitter!
- flatline 17y agoMost 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.
- ck2 17y agoTheir 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.
- mahmud 17y agoBBC, 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.
- tibbon 17y agoUnfortunately 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.
- jsz0 17y agoAt 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 17y agoSo based on that, was CNN twice as full of "drama, fear, shouting" last year?
- hnsummary 17y agoArticle 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-their-viewers-in-the-last-year/ http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/30/cnn-lost-almost-half-of-thei...
- elblanco 17y agoIt'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).