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cable news networks
Increased audience share will pay off over time
By Kevin Downey
If you are watching CNN or Fox News or MSNBC these days--and it seems we all are--you'll notice the occasional commercial, but only during news lulls.
If you also follow media only vaguely, you might assume that the absence of ads is because advertisers are not interested in putting messages up against the horrid reports of last week's terrorist attacks on the U.S.
But if you follow media with any diligence, especially the cable news networks, you'll know otherwise.
In these highly competitive times, building audience for these networks is taking priority over ad revenue. Commercials are being preempted at will for any news breaks that come in.
This is an awful story as it unfolds, and it will get worse as the U.S. mounts its retributive attacks, but it is also cable news' finest hour, with eyes glued to the cable news channels across the country.
What the networks gain in audience will repay many times over in future ad revenues whichever network comes out ahead.
If the Gulf War made CNN almost a decade ago, as conventional media wisdom has it, this war stands to make the next CNN for the coming decade.
Each of the cable news networks at least quintupled its average audience last week, and CNN’s audience went up tenfold, to over 3.4 million viewers.
The hope is that those bigger audiences will translate into more ad revenue down the road.
"There is an offsetting effect later when some people are buying in at much higher ratings than the networks would get during a regular news day," says Bill Marchetti, an analyst with Paul Kagan Associates.
"Initially the networks just want to get on the air as quickly as they can and almost cannot afford to take a commercial break."
As was the case with most television networks, the cable news networks, of course, gave up on commercials to cover what is easily the biggest news story of the past ten years.
But CNN and its rivals continued airing uninterrupted coverage even as the broadcast networks and virtually every other cable network went back to at least partially regular schedules.
The reason comes down to the fact that this is what cable news networks do: cover breaking news.
But it also comes down, in part, to that delicate dance of capitalizing on a horrific tragedy, especially one as wide-reaching as last week’s terrorist attacks.
The cable news business has become extremely competitive. Fox News, for example, came within 16,000 viewers this summer of knocking CNN from the No. 1 spot it has held for two decades.
"When you’ve got three major all-news channels, you are really trying to grab as many people as you can," says Marchetti.
"Then, when you slip back into commercials, the hope is that yours will be the one they stick with."
Last week’s terrorist attacks were an unfortunate opportunity for the cable news networks to capture new viewers and, in CNN’s case, to reaffirm its position as the leading cable news network.
That it did exceedingly well.
Even though CNN was starting from a larger base of viewers, its audience increased by 953 percent last week. That far outpaced Fox News’s 552 percent increase and MSNBC’s 459 percent increase.
And the audience for its simulcast on CNN, Headline News, TNT, and TBS–all AOL Time Warner companies–surpassed the audience for CNN’s coverage of the Gulf War, which occurred when it was the only cable news network. The Gulf War has remained its most-watched event ever.
On Tuesday, an average of 7.4 million households watched CNN through its simulcast, compared to about 6.2 million homes that watched CNN on January 17, 1991.
And over the course of the day on Tuesday, more than 100 million people, or 50 percent of all TV households, watched at least part of CNN’s coverage of the terrorist attacks.
Looking ahead, each of the cable news networks will air commercials only when news is not breaking.
"Going back to normal is dictated by the news," says a spokesperson for CNN. "If we need to go to uninterrupted coverage, then we will."
And as most ad mediums are doing now, the cable news networks are scrutinizing content to ensure that nothing that can now be seen as offensive makes it onto the air.
"There are certain commercials that are not being used based on their content or based on their subject matter," confirms a spokesperson for MSNBC.
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CABLE NEWS
NETWORKS |
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Total Viewers |
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House- |
House- |
Last |
Y-T-D Avg** |
% Chg Last Week vs Avg |
|
|
TOTAL DAY |
|||||
|
CNN |
3.2 |
2,666 |
3,402 |
323 |
953 |
|
Fox News |
2.0 |
1,405 |
1,883 |
289 |
552 |
|
MSNBC |
1.4 |
974 |
1,246 |
223 |
459 |
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PRIMETIME |
|||||
|
CNN |
4.5 |
3,772 |
5,315 |
659 |
707 |
|
Fox News |
3.2 |
2,255 |
3,357 |
609 |
451 |
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MSNBC |
2.4 |
1,659 |
2,269 |
322 |
605 |
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* September 11, 2001-September 14, 2001 |
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September 19, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life.
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