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Intro | Content Analysis | Audience | Economics | Ownership | News Investment | Public Attitudes | Conclusion | Charts & Tables
Audience
When trying to understand the audience for cable news, these
questions stand out:
-
How many people watch cable news, and is that number
growing?
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Who is really No. 1?
-
How many people watch cable news versus broadcast?
The answers, we found, are not as simple as some people may
think.
It has become fashionable of late to describe the current
era as "the age of cable rising." The ratings surge
during the war in Iraq is usually cited.
The truth is much more complicated. If looked at clearly,
the cable audience is really no larger today than it was two
years ago.
The notion that cable is surging is based on numbers translated
for journalists by the cable channels themselves, which convert
the Nielsen ratings data into annual "averages."
By that accounting, thanks to an enormous but brief spike
during the war, the cable news audience is described as surging.
As reported in the press, Fox News in 2003 was up 53 percent
overall (to 1 million viewers on average) and 45 percent in
prime time (an average of 1.7 million viewers) over the year
before. CNN had a 24 percent rise in all day viewing (665,000
at any given time) and a 22 percent jump for prime time (to
1.1 million).
Yet such "averaging" tends to create a misimpression,
the idea that the audience is spread relatively evenly through
the year. In reality, cable ratings are among the most volatile
in journalism, spiking and falling wildly with news events.
A yearly average implies the typical cable audience is larger
than it usually is. Instead, there is something closer to
a normal base level cable audience most months punctuated
by occasional spikes during rare major news events.
In mathematical terms, this would translate into looking
at the median (defined as the middle value) rather than the
average. For instance, taking the average viewership for 2003
and comparing it 2002 shows a large increase in the cable
news audience - up 34 percent for the day and 32 percent for
prime time. However, if we take the median, or the middle
value of the 12 months, cable viewership was basically stagnant,
showing no growth during the day and a gain of just 3 percent
in prime time. Looking at the medians, CNN and MSNBC lost
viewers in 2003, while Fox News saw an 18 percent rise in
its median monthly audience.
2003 Median and Average Audience Growth
from 2002
Source: Nielsen Media Research
| |
Median |
Average |
| Daytime Cable |
0% |
+34% |
| Prime time Cable |
+3% |
+32% |
| Daytime CNN |
-11% |
+20% |
| Prime time CNN |
-6% |
+20% |
| Daytime Fox News |
+18% |
+53% |
| Prime time Fox News |
+18% |
+44% |
| Daytime MSNBC |
-13% |
+17% |
| Prime time MSNBC |
-19% |
+22% |
Going back even farther, a detailed month-by-month analysis
of cable shows the following basic story line over the last
six years. Cable audiences saw a gradual growth after the
launch of Fox News and MSNBC in 1996, then a jump after September
11, 2001. Since, then, however, the cable news audience at
any given time overall is probably most accurately described
as flat except for the beginning of the war in Iraq in 2003.
Cable viewer data are generally broken down by daytime and
prime time. Looking at audiences each month, fewer than 700,000
people watched cable during any given daytime moment between
October 1997 and July 1998, and fewer than 1.2 million watched
in prime time.
That changed when the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal led to the
Clinton impeachment proceedings in August 1998. The average
daytime audience broke the 700,000 level six out of the next
seven months. Prime time exceeded 1.2 million every month.
But the audience began drifting downward again after the impeachment
proceedings ended.
The Florida election fiasco in November 2000 proved to be
the next major boost for cable. Daytime audiences doubled
and prime time audiences nearly did that month, and while
audiences began to recede again, they never fell back all
the way to their previous levels. For each of the first eight
months of 2001, audiences were larger than they were in the
same month the year earlier.
Then came September 11, which seemed to create a structural
change in the appeal of cable news. The average daytime cable
audience in September 2001 surged well above 2 million for
the first time. It has not dropped below 1.3 million since,
more than double its usual monthly total before then. The
prime time audience surpassed 4 million viewers for the first
time, and has not fallen below 2 million since. Cable had
a new sea level - nearly double what it was in 1998.
Yet since September 2001, there has been no rise in that
base level audience. Even the war in Iraq in 2003 did not
have the kind of lasting impact on cable that September 11
did.
The war did represent a boon for cable news. When it began
in March, cable ratings nearly tripled from the week before.
For April overall, more than 6.9 million people watched cable
news in prime time on average at any given time, a new monthly
high (see Sidebar on this page).
Yet the gains were short-lived. In May the monthly average
number of viewers watching in prime time plummeted back down
to 2.7 million viewers, in June to 2.4 million and in July
to 2.2 million.
The war, in other words, did not change the base level audience.
Another way of looking at this is to look number of people
watching cable news each month year to year. From September
2000 to August 2002, cable had a positive year-over-year audience
growth every month in daytime and every month but one in prime
time.
Yet since then, that growth has stopped. In four of the
last six months of 2003 fewer people were watching cable news
in both prime time and daytime than the year before.
In other words, cable news has held on to basically none
of the viewers it gained during the war.
The cable news world is certainly much bigger than it once
was. The typical base level for audience cable news is more
than double what it was six years ago. And the spikes during
major news events may be higher, too. More people turned to
cable during the war than ever before.
The Battle for the Top
Anyone who has followed the cable news industry over the
two last years has surely heard that Fox News has overtaken
CNN when it comes to audience. Or has it?
Looking only at Nielsen data, the most widely used source,
the picture seems pretty clear. For 16 years, since its inception
in 1980 until the launch of Fox News and MSNBC in 1996, CNN
had a monopoly over cable news. Since late 1996, Fox News
has grown rapidly. MSNBC, despite being carried on more cable
systems initially than Fox News, never seemed to gain many
viewers. Soon, it was largely a two-network race.
Starting in 2001, CNN began to lose viewers while Fox News
slowly but steadily built an audience around shows such as"The
O'Reilly Factor."
The election dispute in Florida represented a boon for the
medium, with viewership at all three networks spiking significantly
in November 2000 compared with the rest of 2000. Then, in
the election aftermath, Fox News held on to more of its new
viewers than CNN.
In January of 2002, Fox News for the first time surpassed
CNN in total viewers and held its lead. This was due more
to big CNN losses, however, than Fox News's fairly steady
but modest gains in viewers. (Fox News at the time averaged
1.1 million viewers in prime time versus 921,000 for CNN.
MSNBC, a distant third, averaged 358,000 viewers in prime
time.)
A year later, in January 2003, Fox News had maintained its
advantage (with 1,014,000 viewers on average, compared with
721,000 for CNN, and 252,000 for MSNBC)
And immediately after the war in Iraq, it appeared in May
that the network was possibly pulling farther ahead, holding
onto more of its wartime audience than CNN.
In the months since, however, Fox News's losses have actually
accelerated, and its margin over CNN has narrowed slightly.
Still, as of December 2003, Fox News has drawn better ratings
than CNN in every month since January 2002 - 24 consecutive
months as the cable news leader.
In 2003, the median monthly viewership of Fox News was 770,000
daytime viewers and 1.4 million in prime time, 52 and 62 percent
more, respectively, than CNN. In December 2003, Fox News averaged
1.4 million viewers in prime time, and 961,000 in daytime,
both roughly 60 percent more than CNN. In conventional ratings
terms, Fox News is well ahead.
Two elements, however, need to be understood about the Nielsen
data. First, Nielsen measures only the viewers in private
homes. Thus, there are not reliable data on how many viewers
tune in at work, the gym, airports or elsewhere. (About 18
million travelers are exposed to the CNN Airport Network each
month, according to CNN).
Second, Nielsen data measure only how many people are viewing
a given program at a given time. This is what matters to advertisers.
But the numbers do not tell us whether the people who are
watching a given program at one time are different people
or the same as are watching another program later on.
In other words, the ratings data do not tell us how many
people watch cable news overall. There is no number here that
would be analogous to newspaper readership or circulation,
or the number of "unique visitors" to a Web site.
This may have worked fine for describing the appeal of broadcast
television, where every show was a distinct product. But it
misses something in capturing the scope of a medium like cable
television, where much of the broadcast day is indistinct
from another part.
As a result, CNN executives argue, the ratings numbers significantly
undercount CNN's real total viewership and may overstate Fox
News' appeal.
CNN executives argue that their internal research suggests
that through the course of the day, more different people
check in on their network for news updates. Fox News, they
contend, has a smaller overall audience, but Fox News's audience
is more loyal and watches for longer periods of time, thus
giving Fox a slightly bigger audience at any given moment.
Is this just network PR spin?
Actually, there is some public research to suggest CNN may
have something of a point.
The only way now to find out how many people overall are
watching a given cable station, or even cable news generally,
is through survey research rather than ratings. The survey
work by the Pew Research Center has examined this over several
years and finds that while Fox News is gaining, CNN actually
is cited by more people as the source they turn to for most
of their news.
In October 2003, in the latest data available, 17 percent
of those surveyed cited Fox News as their primary news source,
while 20 percent cited CNN. And in July, closer to the March/April
war in Iraq, during which Fox News enjoyed a spike in ratings,
CNN's margin over Fox News was even bigger - five points rather
than three (27 percent versus 22 percent).
Thus, Fox News is widely understood in the general press
as the cable news leader in viewers, and at any given moment,
which is what advertisers care about, that seems true. In
another sense, however, Fox News' dominance is less clear.
It is possible, but hard to pin down, that more Americans
turn to CNN over time. But they are spread out over more of
the broadcast day or even week.
Looking at the survey data, MSNBC remains a distant third,
as is the case with ratings. Just 6 percent of respondents
cited MSNBC as their primary source of news in October (and
9 percent in July).
Cable Versus Network
The inevitable limitations of ratings raise another issue
when it comes to trying to assess the reach of cable: How
many people now turn in the course of a day or a week to cable
instead of the older, traditional broadcast networks -- ABC,
CBS, and NBC?
For all that people like to note the rise in cable's numbers,
many critics are quick to point out that their ratings are
nothing compared to those commanded by the old broadcasters.
Indeed, if they aired on broadcast TV, even the cable network
shows with the highest ratings -- "The O'Reilly Factor"
and "Larry King Live," for instance -- would be
considered problems. Their 1 or 2 ratings points would probably
get them canceled after a week.
Consider this: In June 2003, the CBS "Evening News"
was watched by 6.5 million viewers, a recent low. Yet that
was still three times higher than the average prime time viewership
of all three cable news channels combined during the same
week.
If the three nightly network newscast audiences in November
2003 were combined, a total of 29.3 million viewers, it would
be more than 12 times the prime time audience for cable, 2.4
million viewers, during the same period.
What is more, this is comparing network shows that are on
at a time when Americans increasingly aren't even home - 6:30
p.m. and even earlier in some West Coast areas -to a cable
average that includes programs that are on during the heaviest
television watching period, prime time. When looked at this
way, the cable numbers seem even lower.
Here, again, however, the limitations of traditional ratings
in trying to reflect the full impact of cable may present
a problem.
The ratings numbers do capture a sense of how many people
are watching the three nightly network newscasts during the
dinner hour versus any given cable program. And they show
a remarkable, even underestimated vigor for the old nightly
newscasts. Not only are these programs substantively different
than cable in the nature of their news (see Network
Content), but they are also vastly more popular as individual
programs.
Yet these simple ratings comparisons do not fully capture
how many people turn to cable news versus network news generally
today to get their information.
For that, survey research again may tell us more. And the
survey work suggests that cable has become more important
than traditional ratings reflect. Cable may have even surpassed
network as a source for news and information.
For example, in 2003, the household weekly average for time
spent watching cable news was 3 hours and 6 minutes, significantly
higher than the 2 hours and 19 minutes spent watching broadcast
news (including network news magazine shows), according to
an analysis by CNN of Nielsen data. This was an increase of
41 minutes a week for cable news in 2003 and a 2-minute drop
for broadcast news.
For some time, the Pew Research Center surveys have asked
people where they go for most of their national and international
news. Today, more people cite cable than network, and have
for some time.
In January 2003, for instance, a Pew survey asking people
simply to identify whether their favored news source was cable,
network or local found cable held a 36-point advantage over
network (49 percent cable, 13 percent network).
Pew has asked that same question for 10 years, and has seen
cable's advantage increasing since 2001, though the gap narrowed
slightly during the Iraq war.
Where People Go for National/International News, Network
vs. Cable
|
|
Do you get most of your news about national and international
issues from network TV news, from local TV news, or
from cable news networks such as CNN, MSNBC, and the
Fox News Channel?
|
|
|
|
Design
Your Own Chart
|
When people are asked to name a specific channel where they
go for "most" of their national and international
news, CNN ranks No. 1 and Fox News No. 2, both ahead of any
of the three broadcast networks.
Where People Go for National/International News, Specific
Channels
|
|
January 2002 - October 2003
|
|
|
|
Design
Your Own Chart
|
These comparisons also, of course, reflect the vast differences
in supply. Cable is on 24 hours a day. Network news is on,
even if one were to include prime time magazines, at most
three or four hours a day.
And, again, increasingly the nightly network newscasts are
on at times when people are not home. People's commutes have
been getting longer, making it harder for them to be home
when network newscasts are on, whether in the evening or morning.
This is why in local news the early-morning programming, before
7 a.m., is the only growth area.
One has to ask about the level of commitment the networks
really have to a signature evening newscast or to covering
news in a systematic way. If one wanted to structurally limit
a television program's chances of success, airing it at 6:30
p.m. or even 7 p.m. would be a fair way of doing it, and that
is when the network news is on. In many places in the West,
moreover, such as San Francisco, the evening newscasts go
on in an even less enviable time slot, as early, for some
networks, as 5:30 p.m., when the number of television sets
in use is much smaller.
Whatever the reasons, the disadvantages tonightly news have
added up, and the audience is clearly shrinking. From 1993
to 2002, the percentage of Americans in the Pew surveys who
said they regularly got their news from the networks steadily
declined, from 58 to just 32 percent.
Cable News' Expanding Reach
One other factor has hastened cable's growth, particularly
Fox News's. Over the last five years, Fox News and MSNBC have
become available in more people's homes.
Shortly after their launches in 1996, Fox News was available
in 21 million homes, and MSNBC in 33 million. CNN, meanwhile,
was already available in 72 million homes. Now, the numbers
are much closer, with CNN available in 86 million homes, Fox
News in 80 million, and MSNBC in 76 million.
Now Fox News could have difficulty, however, trying to build
more audience. There are 90 million cable homes and that number
is not likely to increase very much. Thus, most increases
in Fox News ratings would depend on people choosing its programming
rather than suddenly having Fox News available to them for
the first time. By the same token, this added availability,
or "carriage," makes the lack of growth at MSNBC
appear more pronounced. Even if only a steady but modest percentage
of cable subscribers preferred MSNBC, it would have seen its
ratings grow based on expanding the number of available households.
Demographics
There is another facet of cable news usage that bears noting.
The average age of those who watch the cable news channels
is older than for other cable programming. While these may
be affluent elites watching the news, they are older elites.
This may be a sign of danger ahead for cable news.
The median age for CNN viewers is 59.6; for Fox News it is
58.3, and for MSNBC it is 52.4.
This gives Fox News a slight advantage over CNN and has always
been the key to MSNBC's appeal - it has the youngest cable
audience.
The age of its viewers offers some advantages to cable over
broadcast networks, though again, the limits of when broadcast
news shows air is probably a key factor. In fall 2003, the
median age for the three network evening news programs ranged
from 59.5 for ABC to 60.3 for NBC to 61.2 for CBS, slightly
older than cable.
The limits of who is home when the broadcast news programs
are shown is probably a factor. While retirees may be home
at 6:30 or 7 pm, working people are more likely to be still
on the job or in transit. The fact that these demographic
figures for cable are based only on home viewership, not in
hotels, airports or offices, where again many workers are
likely to be in the evening, may also skew those numbers older
as well.
Click
here to view footnotes for this section.
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