Big Three Evening Newscasts At or Near All-Time 25-54 Demographic Lows

May 22nd, 2012 11:43 PM
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…

Alone Among Network Broadcasts, CBS Evening News Ignores John Edwards

May 17th, 2012 1:17 PM
Over the past few weeks, the John Edwards corruption trial has been all over the news, and for good reason: Edwards was one of the most visible and charismatic figures in the national Democratic Party for several years. The former trial attorney served as a senator from North Carolina from 1999 to 2005, and in 2004 and 2008 ran for president of the United States. In 2004, Edwards was his party'…

NBC's Williams Praises CBS's Pelley For Being In 'Dan Rather School of

May 16th, 2012 3:55 PM
Appearing on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman on Tuesday, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams heaped his idea of high praise onto CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley: "Scott grew up firmly in the Dan Rather school of journalism, which is a great tradition." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Despite that laughable reference to the disgraced former CBS News anchor…

Media Breezes By Politically Embarrassing Occupy May Day Protests

May 3rd, 2012 5:21 PM
When the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement first arrived on the scene back in October of 2011 the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) news networks greeted, what they viewed as the left’s answer to the Tea Party, with a whopping 33 full stories in just the first 11 days of coverage and a total of 81 stories in that month. However, when that movement proved to be an embarrassment to the left and…

Looming Threat of Social Security Implosion Results in Just 72 Seconds

April 24th, 2012 1:03 PM
Over a combined total of nine and a half hours of programming, CBS, NBC and ABC allowed a mere 72 seconds of coverage to the news, Monday, that Social Security will go bankrupt three years earlier than previously expected. ABC's World News and NBC's Nightly News skipped the subject entirely. The same networks that offered copious amounts of stories to a vague threat of future global warming…

NBC, CBS Finally Discover Ugly Attack on Ann Romney, Highlight GOP 'Ge

April 13th, 2012 12:49 PM
NBC and CBS's evening and morning shows on Thursday and Friday finally discovered the ugly comments made by a Democratic operative against Ann Romney. After skipping the story Thursday morning, CBS Evening News reporters did their best to minimize it. Correspondent Nancy Cordes insisted that Hillary Rosen, who knocked Mrs. Romney for "never working," made sure to stress that the woman "is not…

Not Even CBS News Buys It: Scott Pelley Scoffs at Obama Adopting Reaga

April 12th, 2012 3:37 AM
CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley was barely able to contain his laughter Wednesday night after playing a clip of President Obama invoking Ronald Reagan on behalf of his “Buffett Rule” tax hike quest. Nearly breaking into a laugh, a baffled Pelley wondered to CBS News political analyst John Dickerson: “So a vote for President Obama is a vote for Ronald Reagan?!” Dickerson snickered too. (…

Evening Newscasts Saw Viewership Decline With Daylight Saving Time's A

March 25th, 2012 11:50 AM
During the week of March 12, after the arrival of Daylight Saving Time, the audience for the evenings newscasts at the Big Three networks dropped precipitously compared to the previous week (by 7.7%) and the same week last year (by 9.0%). Perhaps the year-over-year metric is an unfair comparison, because during the same week in 2011 the Japanese tsunami drew in ordinarily uninterested viewers…

CBS Plays Up Voter Suppression Charge in Pennsylvania; Ignores Voter F

March 16th, 2012 7:07 PM
On Thursday's CBS Evening News, Elaine Quijano touted a charge from Pennsylvania Democrats that the new voter I.D. law there "targets poor and elderly voters." Quijano also spotlighted that, according to unnamed "Pennsylvania court officials," there were no cases of "voters convicted of fraud in the last five years." However, in late 2010, the AP reported on a credible allegation of voter fraud…

Obama Administration Pulls Funding, But CBS Scolds Texas for Daring to

March 16th, 2012 10:00 AM
Obama administration officials in the Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday they would pull all of Medicaid’s funding for Texas’ Women’s Health Program because the state decided to no longer pass those funds along to abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood. Instead of holding the Obama officials accountable for putting the interests of a favored liberal group ahead…

CBS Spins Obama's 'All-Time Low' Poll: 'Little He Can Do' With Gas Pri

March 13th, 2012 3:14 PM
Charlie Rose and Bob Schieffer were President Obama's Amen corner on the issue of gas prices on Tuesday's CBS This Morning. Rose shamelessly claimed, "The President has a point...There's little that he can do...in the short term to affect gas prices, and gas prices hurts his political chances." Schieffer replied, "That's right on all counts...the problem is...people think there are things he…

CBS Trumpets Slanted Poll: 61% of Catholics Support ObamaCare Mandate

February 15th, 2012 7:02 PM
On its Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning newscasts, CBS played up its most recent poll with the New York Times, which found that 61% of Catholics approve "President Obama's contraception policy," as a graphic on the CBS Evening News spun the recent federal government mandate that forces religious institutions to cover sterilization and birth control without a co-pay. The left-leaning…

ABC Ignores Assassination Attempts on Israeli Diplomats

February 14th, 2012 12:49 AM
On Monday, uniquely among the broadcast network evening newscasts, ABC's World News skipped the news that Israeli diplomats were the targets of simultaneous assassination attempts in two different countries, most likely from  Iranian sources.

CBS Evening News Finally Covers 'Firestorm' Between Catholic Church an

February 8th, 2012 6:49 PM
After 19 days of controversy, CBS Evening News on Tuesday finally got around to covering the growing dispute between the Obama administration, who wants to impose a mandate for sterilizations and birth control on religious institutions, and the Catholic Church and its allies, who see it as a violation of religious liberty. All of the Big Three networks' evening newscasts on Tuesday covered the…