Is it possible?
Can it be that CNN, the once new-idea of a 24-hour cable news network created in 1980 by Atlanta real estate entrepreneur Ted Turner - is slowly disappearing in front of our eyes?
Take a look at some recent headlines:
The Independent:
CNN lays off hundreds of employees and replaces Jim Acosta as it restructures network amid falling ratings
CNN ‘axing' top stars amid plummeting ratings that'll see ‘hundreds' fired
The New York Post:
CNN ratings sink to all-time low in vital demographic for advertisers — as left-leaning networks plummet after Trump win
The percentages of decline are alarming. "CNN suffered a 52% decline in its primetime demo since the election, pulling in a measly average audience of 77,000, according to Nielsen. Its overall primetime viewership shriveled by 45% this year to 405,000 viewers, the data showed."
Then there was this from The Daily Beast:
CNN To Fire Hundreds of Staff Amid Ratings Crisis
There are more headlines along these CNN lines out there, but you get the deal.
CNN is in trouble. Potentially big trouble. TV network history-ending trouble, for founder Ted Turner’s founding, and in the day decidedly visionary, idea.
There are two questions, it would seem.
First, how did CNN get to this position? And second, what can be done to turn CNN’s fortunes around? Being found liable for defamation is not going to help. Making an internal decision that CNN isn't anti-Trump enough is not going to help.
In his memoirs, Turner writes:
By 1978 it had been several years since I first considered an all-news channel and still no one had done it, so I decided to consider launching one myself.
Which is to say, having moved from real estate to owning a local cable channel, Turner had the idea of creating something that simply did not exist -- a 24 hour, round the clock all news channel.
It should be said (and I say this as a CNN commentator alum) that what began as Ted Turner’s vision eventually revolutionized the television world. In today’s world of Fox News, Newsmax (where, full disclosure again, I am now a commentator), MSNBC, NewsNation and all manner of other cable outlets global, national and local televising all manner of other things, Ted Turner’s creation as the first all news channel gets forgotten, with, one suspects, later generations having no idea of what he accomplished in the first place.
The question now is: can CNN survive? It is a fact of human history that visionary founders of anything eventually pass from the scene, with their invention being passed down to the hands of newer generations who may - or may not - understand how to shepherd the original creation along and make sure it keeps thriving.
It seems clear, at least from the outside, that the original vision for CNN as it currently exists is clouded at the best, a non-starter at the worst. The day has long gone where Americans automatically turn on CNN to check in and see the state of the news at the moment or catch up on some mega-event such as an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate or president or a new attack in a war already active somewhere on the globe.
CNN now exists in a world of cable news competitors. And, it would seem, isn’t sure how to make itself stand out as the unique vision, stand-alone cable channel it once was.
Is it already too late for CNN to save itself? Is it headed to oblivion in the ash heap of television history? Is the network founded when Jimmy Carter was president now headed towards the finish line, as was President Carter himself recently? Can CNN be saved?
There is no crystal ball here in this space.
Other than to say the obvious: the world turns. As the old Bob Dylan song had it, “The Times They Are A Changin’”.
And so they are. And for CNN and crew, that means having the creative vision to move the first cable news network forward and thrive.
Stay tuned.
