Big Three Evening Newscasts At or Near All-Time 25-54 Demographic Lows
At Media Bistro earlier today, the news about the combined average total audience for the Big Three TV networks' evening news was grim enough, coming in at a combined 20.15 million (NBC, 7.52 million; ABC, 7.14 million; CBS, 5.49 million).
But the news about the audience in the key 25-54 demographic was, from what I can tell, either an all-time low or darned close to it. I couldn't find an example of one that was lower in searches through previous overall audience low points covered in prior posts at NewsBusters and or my home blog. Last week and other weeks which were almost as low in the 25-54 deme follow the jump:
- 5/14/12 -- 5.42 million (NBC, 2.04 million; ABC, 1.83 million; CBS, 1.55 million)
- 5/18/09 -- 5.52 million (NBC, 2.09 million; ABC, 1.92 million; CBS, 1.51 million)
- 5/3/10 -- 5.68 million (NBC, 2.18 million; ABC, 1.97 million; CBS, 1.53 million)
- 3/29/10 -- 5.71 million (NBC, 2.26 million; ABC, 1.89 million; CBS, 1.56 million)
- 4/12/10 -- 5.81 million (NBC, 2.31 million; ABC, 1.94 million; CBS, 1.56 million)
Since advertising rates are largely driven by the 25-54 demo audience, the cratering in that group is especially hurtful.
What I wrote almost six years ago about the networks, the evening news programs and those who produce and broadcast them still seems to hold true:
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 very small parts of very large organizations ... so small that apparently no one at any of the three parent companies cares enough to do anything about the continued hemorrhaging in their evening new shows, as long as the news operations themselves are profitable.
So because those other parts of the news operations make money, the nightly news programs can chug right along, oblivious to normal profitability expectations.
The journalists who put together the nightly news programs could care less if the broadcasts are profitable. It’s obvious that their agenda is more important.
Because of all of the above, the ever-shrinking audience for these broadcasts will be spoon-fed biased reporting ... and conservative-bashing for the foreseeable future.
As long as all of this continues to hold true, may the hemorrhaging at the outposts of Brian Williams, Diane Sawyer, and Scott Pelley continue.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
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Comments
White supremacy in the Tea Party?
Submitted by FranklinCheeses on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 11:52pm.
…”Angry White Dude.”
He was virulently anti-Muslim, anti-blacks, anti-Hispanics, anti-women. I sparred with him, but eventually was reduced to simply swearing at him and his readers. It was cathartic. I enjoyed telling them how stupid they were, but nothing – no well-reasoned argument, no link to facts, no incriminating evidence, no vile swearing, no vicious insult – nothing got through to them. The funniest part was that he kept banning me for swearing – despite the fact that HALF of his commenters were posting links to white supremacist websites. “But, Angry White Dude, aren’t white supremacy sites more disgusting than swear words?” His answer? “No. It’s ok for people to post links to white supremacists on my website, but NO SWEARING.” The stupidity of it boggled my mind, and I eventually gave up trying to point out what a racist, vile, disgusting hypocrite he was.
Angry White Dude is anonymous. I repeatedly called him out, but he remains, to this day, anonymous. He claims to be a brave soul standing up for a downtrodden minority – but he is apparently SO proud of his blog, that he refuses to stand up and take credit for it. In other words, he’s a giant blubbering coward. He knows, deep down, that if he were exposed, his friends and family would be disgusted with him – he would lose business, or perhaps lose his entire job if his clients knew what kind of bigotry he spewed on the weekends. He knows deep down that what he does is disgusting, but he does it anyway. In other words, he purposefully does things that he knows to be immoral and wrong. He is, simply, a bad person without character or morals.
Then I found this:
http://jumpinginpools.blogspot.jp/2010/08/interview-with-angry-white-dud...
His name is Phil. Ok. Not much to go on, but his name is Phil. Cool.
Then I found this: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:m2Rl9UaDKqgJ:drgina...
This is a cached image of Gina Loudon’s blog. This post, as you see, is tagged “Angry White Dude.” A man claiming to be Phillip Dennis commented on it. Look at Phillip’s avatar. It’s taken from Angry White Dude’s blog.
I emailed Angry White Dude: hey, are you Phillip Dennis? Look at this link.
The next day, the Gina Loudon blog had scrubbed Angry White Dude from their website. Phillip Dennis’s avatar was gone: http://drginaloudon.com/general/arizona-buycott/
It was as if Angry White Dude had contacted this blog and requested they remove the incriminating evidence. He must have, because I didn’t contact this blog until after they scrubbed Angry White Dude from this very page.
Finally, I did a Tin Eye search on Phillip Dennis’s avatar: http://www.tineye.com/search/show_all/d460e7e27a7924c00e6ade3043cbf3ab48...
That avatar, Phillip Dennis’s avatar, came from Angry White Dude. Now, Angry White Dude has toned down his racism lately, I think. He used to have full-blown white supremacists happily posting disgusting bigotry on his comment threads while censoring me for so much as saying a bad word. I called him out: you let racists on your site! And you know what? Those racists are not there anymore. Something did change. Maybe he realized that his bigotry had crossed a line, gone a step further than he meant it to. Perhaps his site was overrun with white supremacists and he realized what he had become. Good. He grew up a little, like most people do at age 20 or so. It only took him ten or twenty years to get to the point where he had the moral compass of a child, but, hey. Good on him for finally reaching some basic level of human decency.
But he was and remains to this day a terrible bigot. And, even if he has found a tiny, miniscule shred of common human decency, he still remains anonymously spreading bile and hate onto the internet – still fully conscious of how foul his behavior is, yet too scared to come forward and admit what he has done.
And you know what? He’s probably the founder of the Dallas Tea Party.
That’s a big deal.
While I agree with you re. AWD,
Submitted by RESTLESS 1 on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 9:34am.
You couldn't post this in the forum?
Saw this on another thread
Submitted by Rukus on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 8:09pm.
Also. hopefully won't end up being more spam.
You agree?
Submitted by FranklinCheeses on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 10:21pm.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Yeah, ok, I was spammiing. I admit it.
But, look, you agree Re: AWD? That he's a bigot? That he's a white supremacist? That his identity might be a big deal?
This is a big deal to me. Conservatives/right-wingers/Tea Partiers/racists/bigots/nutjobs at Newsbusters - you guys tend to stick together. In fact, accusations of racism are one of the number one ways to get banned at right-wing websites like this - you guys don't like talking about racism openly and honestly.
But you AGREE Re: AWD??? Please, tell me more.
Move it to the forum where it belongs
Submitted by RESTLESS 1 on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 11:25pm.
And I'll be more than happy to explain how wrong you are about NB's tolerance of racists.
You should be aware, though, that trolls are banned too.
I mean, really, you've had an account for how long, and have posted on two threads.
So, are you ChesterBogus, or frankischeesy? Which is it?
Ok, what moron still gets
Submitted by MightyMouth on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 11:52pm.
Ok, what moron still gets their news from the broadcast networks? I stopped when Cronkite lost the Viet Nam war.
ex mainstream media news junkie
Submitted by Kuso Jiji on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 12:04am.
i remember watching these stations when i first became interested in the day's events. i wasn't aware of bias back then but do remember how they constantly attacked Ronald Reagan and other Republicans and treated all Democrats with kit gloves. A few years later, I watched how the press circled around Clinton and remember a picture of a smiling victorous looking Clinton on the campaign trail alongside a picture of a tired and dour looking Bush with the road sign WRONG WAY off his shoulder just days before the november election. I knew then and there that the press was not the press at all but operatives for the Democratic Party. Then MRC came along and helped define it. The dismal ratings of the network news is proof that more and more Americans are onto the Democrats propoganda arm and will not tolerate being lied to by the Democratic Establishment.
Good. As far as I'm concerned...
Submitted by Phryj1 on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 4:19am.
...it couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch.
Good riddance.
Progressives seem to be completely averse to facts and logic. Apparently, reality has a conservative bias.
Who was it that said the news
Submitted by motherbelt on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 7:38am.
Who was it that said the news shouldn't be about making a profit?
Well, they're certainly succeeding!
The 25-34 age group are most certainly NOT getting their news from TV at 6 PM. They might as well give up on that demographic; there is NO WAY they are going to attract that group.
all the news that's fit to omit
Submitted by Tomorama on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 9:28am.
I am in that group but muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch closer to the 54......
I honestly can't remember the last time I watched 1 minute of any of them.
When I was smart enough to understand what they were doing, I stopped watching.
I admit I watch MSDNC, but that is strictly for laughs at the expense of Meeeeeeka and Leg tingles.
For me Mon-Fri the only must see news TV for me is Brett at 06:00 and Greta at 10:00.
Wallace on Sunday's.
Actually if I can't sleep, I watch re eye as well.
Losers
Submitted by jpalm32 on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 9:09am.
Losers compared to losers.
They are going down the tubes and celebrate beating the other loser.
It's like 3 losing teams playing at the end of the season.
Nobody watching!
A comparison Tom?
Submitted by Tomorama on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 9:30am.
Does anyone know how their ratings compare to Fox from 06:00 - 10:00?
Mr Blumer, could you provide with your vast resources?
No Loss. These are leading
Submitted by John21 on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 10:08am.
No Loss. These are leading contenders for the title of Mr. Obama Personal Public Relations firm.
MSNBC and CNN have the Administrations Public Relations firm clearly sewed up.
They have supported every liberal idea and scheme for decades, and even pretend that they are good for America. They can see the facts do not support them but that is unimportant only the liberal agenda is important. They normally supply no facts or evidence to justify the support of the various liberal programs but it is unnecessary because it is liberal DNC proposal.
The vile and often foolish attacks on anything conservative or anyone that does not support their current hero "Zero" are nasty and usually without basis. The false facts that they make up is almost as disgusting.
The lack of talent in the nightly news organization is also appalling remembering the past where even though liberal the journalist tried to provide honesty and verifiable facts. Today there are none of those on those networks. Sometimes I think they step out of the office and ask the people on the street for the latest rumors and then report it on air as fact. I do not know whether this is done because they are lazy or because they think the audience is stupid, and people watching them may qualify. The do not provide news either local or global only propaganda that fits into the current DNC/liberal talking points.
Why did CBS' numbers go up
Submitted by djaymick on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 12:33pm.
Why did CBS' numbers go up and the others go down? Was it due to Sheryl Atkinson's reporting on Fast and Furious? Something caused people to shift there and the national media should find out what it was in order to boost their ratings. I was always curious why CBS didn't expose NBC, ABC and CNN for their biased reporting and intentional race baiting that would have made their news program superior to their competition.
I think it's Katie Couric's departure ...
Submitted by Tom Blumer on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 10:46pm.
... more than anything else.
I lost interest in alphabet-network news when Reagan was POTUS.
Submitted by drsamherman on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 10:31pm.
Listening to the constant blabber of that bat-guano crazy Sam Donaldson, or that paragon of sleaze Dan Rather or the anesthetized, comatose Tom Brokaw was too nauseating. CNN was always a mouthpiece for Ted Turner's Hanoi Jane lovefest and I only started watching TV news again when Fox came out in the early 90s. It was a great alternative to the biased bullcrap from the alphabet networks, and I always liked Brit Hume's no-nonsense and clear approach to news. I don't watch any Fox programs regularly, but I occasionally catch Fox News Watch because I like their analysis of what is happening in journalism.