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The basic business model of cable news is keeping people addicted to the constant drama of world events. Post-election, much of the liberal base has chosen to unplug, and with a shortage of world events (no matter how much the media tries to hype them up, both the wars in Israel and Ukraine are old news) viewership has fallen lower than the World Curling Championships in Manitoba. MSNBC has been hit pretty hard, but CNN is really turning into the walking dead.
Since the election, CNN has seen a 45 percent drop in prime-time viewership, down to only 394,000 total viewers. Overall, this year CNN has had its worst-ever performance among viewers in the key demographic…
Earlier this month, during the week of Dec. 2, CNN’s prime-time lineup averaged just 367,000 viewers. One week earlier, during the generally quiet time around Thanksgiving, CNN averaged 297,000 viewers.
What’s CNN gonna do about it?
CNN is not conceding defeat. In a press release issued last week trumpeting the network’s accomplishments, it pointed out that CNN was still the fourth most-watched cable network throughout the day, averaging 493,000 total viewers.
After the death of soap operas, there’s not much competition for daytime programming. So CNN is bragging about being fourth in the slow races.
Also CNN is moving being having actual ‘viewers’…
While most networks still measure success by looking at traditional TV viewership, CNN has indicated that it has largely moved past that metric
So it’s launching a subscription service whose results it won’t discuss.
the network launched a paywall in October for $3.99 per month. The network declined to provide data on how many customers the service has… CNN is hoping that the subscription service can offset some of the losses from its television business, an aim that had also motivated its short-lived CNN Plus streaming service in the early months of 2022.
What does CNN even produce that anyone would want to subscribe to?
“I think that the only sustainable model for any big distributed content company is to have a subscription,” said political journalist Chris Cillizza, who worked at the network until he was laid off in 2022. “What’s hard for me is: What is CNN known for? CNN is known for breaking news. People turn it on when something big happens. And I think that’s a really good brand journalistically, but I just don’t know how you make money off it.”
Does CNN break news? What news has CNN broken?
CNN’s idea of ‘breaking news’ is still the 70s idea of sending a remote to a traffic accident and having a reported bloviate in front of it. When done in a war zone in the 90s, this looked good for cable viewers who were excited that they were getting a live feed from Baghdad or Islambad or some Islamic bad. But in the age of Twitter, nobody is impressed.
A CNN executive, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly, said it’s wrong to compare the network’s audience to that of Fox News and MSNBC, which are more ideologically oriented. The better comparison, this person said, is to the BBC, which similarly has a large global newsgathering operation and a worldwide audience.
The BBC is funded through taxes and fines. CNN isn’t. Yet.
Apparently in the UK if you want to watch any live TV you still have to buy a BBC license, which is completely insane. Imagine having to pay CNN to watch FoxNews
You DO have to pay CNN to watch. Fox news. NOt that Fox News is worth a shit.
That’s Hillaryarious!!
Love it Bobo!!
Absolutely right Jeff, if you buy cable. I cut that a long time ago. Still pay people I don’t want to sometimes, but it’s rare, and a lot less when I do.
I got rid of cable, too. What a waste of money. My Samsung TV has over 200 free channels so I don’t miss cable. And I have Netflix, and streaming internet sites, too.
I bet the price of cable more than doubled under Bidumb’s handlers. Good riddance.
The BBC has a huge budget as I understand it, from those licenses the viewers are forced to pay for. So they can put out a few quality stories to make themselves look respectable, while loading their staff with Muslims and leftists and spinning lots of Wokie stories. Hazards of government financed broadcasting.
I remember when I was kid back in the 70s the BBC was a quality network. I saw a VERY graphic documentary of the Holocaust that changed my life. I could never watch it again. Once was more than enough. It’s hard to get those horrific images out of your mind. But I figure people should know what really happened back then. You know, the American GIs had to bury those mountains of emaciated corpses with bulldozers because they couldn’t shovel enough graves. And I remember what those living victims looked like when they were rescued. Dull and almost lifeless faces. I don’t blame them after the horror they were put through.
The Jews say “never again.” I agree with them.
Used to watch good Beeb productions on Saturday afternoons in the 70s, on the Kukla, Fran, and Ollie Show.
I remember that show when I was a kid! It was a chick with puppets, right?
Do you remember when TVs had UHF and VHF? I forget which one was which but I remember the alternate station had a lot of British shows like Monty Python.
Boy, things sure are different today. I seem like a dinosaur.
I think a more apt comparison would be to Pravda.
Scottish Rite TV has no customers.
Wow – expecting people to PAY to watch cnn? That’s like using a PAY TOILET and then having to PAY EXTRA to LOOK at what you crapped!! If people won’t watch it for FREE, WHY would they PAY for it?? I seem to recall something called cnn+! It failed magnificently so what are they going to do differently? Nude nonsense??
It would be really revealing if cable providers had a genuine cafeteria menu, including one-off (PPV) fees to watch one or a recurring series of a channel’s content without having to bundle that channel with one’s the viewer typically chooses to watch. It might cripple the whole business.
Might save the business, because a lot of people won’t pay for the crap these days. They have to get viewers somehow.
I have said just about the very same thing CNN and BBC are just about the same Fake News and PBS runs totally Fake News just like the rest of them and CNN
My mother watches Cindy Woodruff on PBS. I don’t know how I came out of somebody so stupid but she’s my mother so I love her. She always buys me gift cards on the Holidays.
Not even my girls do that, although they give me lots of other things, especially home cooked food. My apartment is actually a bit cluttered with all the stuff they leave here.
Well, that doesn’t help their case. They want to be PBS? Their best hope is for bezos to buy them for a dollar and use them as a tax write off, like the WaPo. Greenfield’s head must be spinning with all the crazy stuff going on right now. Talk of a target rich environment, lol.
Ha ha HAW! 🙂 ……………