The 2008 presidential campaign has already been having a big effect on the cable news networks, where Republican and Democratic debates have drawn record ratings and primary coverage viewership has jumped sharply versus 2004. Still, it may be months before the evening newscasts see an election bump in their ratings. Viewers tend to favor shows specializing in politics, like the Sunday morning news programs and cable political news, this early in the election cycle. After the summer’s conventions and entering the fall debates, the election will start to have a bigger impact on the news shows’ ratings, and that could eventually benefit CBS’s “Evening News,” which to date has put a bigger focus on the elections than the newscasts on NBC and ABC, which are farther ahead in the ratings. Andrew Tyndall, the noted news analyst and author of The Tyndall Report, talks to Media Life about the 2008 elections, the big story of 2007, and how Katie Couric could rise to first place in the next few years.
There's already been a huge amount of interest in the 2008 presidential race and primaries. What effect, if any, will this have on nightly news viewership this year?
The trends indicate that interest in network political coverage has shifted over the years from the summer conventions to the fall debates. Elevated general day-to-day interest in the presidential campaign is more likely to be seen on specialist programming — Sunday mornings, primary elections, political news on cable — than the bread-and-butter of the network nightly newscasts.
The exception was in November 2000, when the result of the general election was in doubt because of the Florida dispute. That aspect of the election was a boon for the nightly newscasts.
The increased interest in the elections may not have helped Couric’s ratings but they have allowed her to produce an interesting innovation that helps her in the long run (her Primary Questions series).
Which network's nightly newscast is doing the best job covering the elections?
CBS is spending most time (518 minutes versus ABC’s 425 and NBC’s 469) since the beginning of 2007 through last Friday.
NBC has the strongest Washington, D.C., bureau, led by Tim Russert, and it offers more rounded coverage because its political reporters, like Andrea Mitchell and David Gregory, also appear regularly on MSNBC.
ABC has the most heavily used campaign correspondent, Jake Tapper. George Stephanopoulos appears on ABC “World News” as frequently as Russert appears on NBC “Nightly News.” On CBS, Bob Schieffer is used less often than Jeff Greenfield, recently hired from CNN in place of Gloria Borger.
Brian Williams seems to have pulled back ahead of Charles Gibson among total viewers. What prompted this switch and do you think these two will continue to go back and forth?
In the scheme of things, it would be an exaggeration to characterize “NBC Nightly News” as having pulled ahead. The accurate way to describe the ratings race among the three broadcast networks’ newscasts would be NBC and ABC neck-and-neck with CBS in third place.
The phenomenon you refer to in your question I refer to as NBC’s success in halting its slide out of first place.
ABC has received full benefit from the expected bounce in its ratings from viewers discovering Charles Gibson and the end to the period of turmoil surrounding Peter Jennings’ cancer death, Bob Woodruff’s battlefield injury and Elizabeth Vargas’ pregnancy.
That bounce has now played out and the two newscasts have seemingly settled at ratings parity.
Meanwhile, Katie Couric remains far behind both of them. Has her viewership stabilized, and will CBS be happy if she remains at this level?
Couric’s viewership has stabilized inasmuch as the immediate 18-month period of churn--sampling new entrants, alienation by the abandonment of old formats--that accompanied her arrival appears to have ended.
The three newscasts are more known quantities now than they have been since she arrived and so stability is more likely than change.
On the other hand, Couric’s tenure has been characterized by a remarkably slow period of news without a major breaking headline story. Viewers are usually more likely to sample other newscasts during heavy news periods rather than light ones. We have not yet seen how Couric performs under such circumstances.
In the context of the gradual decline of network television audiences (not just news audiences but for other dayparts such as primetime, daytime, sports and so on), if Couric’s audience remains its current size (while her competitors decline), she may be in first place within five years or so.
What notable trends did you see in news coverage in 2007?
The biggest innovation in political coverage is the replacement of horse race journalism with a style I call reality journalism coverage.
You say on your site that the war in Iraq was the biggest story in 2007. Do you think it will continue to get that much attention in 2008?
It is highly unlikely.
Every four years, the presidential campaign tends to supplant overseas coverage. Consider this series of minutes of coverage (three-network total) of time spent on stories filed from a foreign dateline in election years compared with the previous year:
1992--2,521; 1991--3,766
1996--1,596; 1995--1,990
2000--1,382; 1999--1,799
2004--2,424; 2003--2,772
Also, it is true that the War in Iraq was the dominant story of 2007 but, to be precise, it was a huge story until mid-September, after which it declined. Thus we are already in the fifth month of Iraq not being a major story.
What have been the biggest changes in the presentation and focus of the nightly newscasts over the last five years?
That is a big question. How about four answers?
The Iraq War: A huge drain on resources, time and security.
Anchors: All three longtime anchors have been replaced.
Platforms: The networks’ news divisions are in mid-phase transition from focusing on their broadcast product to seeing their broadcast programming as one platform among many.
Technology: Converting from correspondent-producer-crew production to single-person digital journalists.
