Viewers Flee Network News
By Don Irvine | June 30, 2010
Network news broadcasts received even more bad news as the latest ratings showed that the big three evening newscasts collectively lost over one million viewers in the past year.
From TVNewser
Even as the oil continues to gush from the sea floor, and the networks shuttle their anchors to points along the Gulf coast, NBC Nightly News, ABC World News and the CBS Evening News continue to lose viewers. All three broadcasts were down in Q2 2010 compared to the same period last year.
In numbers released today, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams lost -440,000 viewers (-140k in A25-54 demo) compared to Q2 2009. ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer lost -260,000 viewers (-80k demo) (Charlie Gibson was anchor in 2009). The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric lost the most, based on a percentage, losing -340,000 viewers (30k demo) compared to Q2 2009. ABC and CBS were also down when Q2 2008 is compared to Q2 2009.
Numbers for Q2 2010:
NBC ABC CBS
• Total: 7,620,000 6,990,000 5,210,000
• A25-54: 2,260,000 1,980,000 1,600,000
Numbers for Q2 2009
NBC ABC CBS
• Total: 8,060,000 7,260,000 5,550,000
• A25-54: 2,400,000 2,060,000 1,630,000
Q1 2010 was not kind to the evening newscasts either. World News and Evening News saw their lowest averages ever for the first three months of 2010. And it was ’round about this time last year those two broadcasts hit all-time ratings lows. It should be noted the anchors, CBS’ Couric and ABC’s Gibson, were off that week.
The ratings are declining even though the Tea Party Movement came to life last year, a brutal battle over health care and more recently the Gulf Oil Spill.
Have viewers tired of the liberal drumbeat of ABC, CBS and NBC so much so that they have tuned out completely or are they moving to Fox and other cable networks where the news is more thoroughly analyzed?
If the networks continue losing viewers at this rate soon there won’t be any viewers to broadcast to.
http://www.aim.org/don-irvine-blog/v...-network-news/