DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 5:45 p.m. March 31, 2009
Fox still king of cable TV news
CNN was No. 2 in first-quarter ratings
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
As always with numbers — especially TV ratings — it depends on which ones you look at and who’s spinning them.
Case in point: Nielsen Media data released Tuesday on the ever fierce cable news network wars.
Executives at CNN boasted the network’s best first quarter in six years in terms of average viewership, but it still finished a distant second to Fox News and many news reports zeroed in on what happened in March: CNN dropped to third place behind Fox and MSNBC in the prime-time news category among viewers age 25-54.
CNN/US President Jonathan Klein downplayed the meaning of one month’s data and hung CNN’s hat on having the best first quarter in six years.
“CNN is more than ever the source of reliable news, and that’s how we like it,” Klein said.
Fox News declined interview requests.
Overall, Fox News averaged 1.2 million viewers during the entire first quarter. CNN pulled in an average 741,000 viewers during the time period. (Fox News and CNN have finished No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, since 2002.)
For the 8 to 11 p.m. news category among the prized 25-54 set, Fox News averaged 552,000 viewers in March — ahead of 332,000 at MSNBC and 288,000 at CNN, according to Nielsen data supplied by Fox News.
It was the first time CNN, owned by Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting System, finished third in that category since it started nearly 30 years ago.
What worked during the first quarter last year — a prime-time lineup of election-based news shows followed by Anderson Cooper 360 — isn’t doing the trick now. Campbell Brown’s 8 p.m. show is pitted against two popular shows on the rival networks: “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox and “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC.
And, News Corp-owned Fox in January launched the Sean Hannity show during the 9 p.m. prime-time slot to follow O’Reilly.
The fact that Fox News’ average viewership for the quarter grew 26 percent compared with a year earlier, vs. 17 percent growth for CNN, suggests Fox News may also be taking advantage of its more conservative reputation now that a Democrat is in the White House.
“We have seen some evidence that Fox was maybe benefitting more because it was the opposition network,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism.
AVERAGE VIEWERSHIP
| Network | 1st quarter 2009 | 1st quarter 2008 | |
| Fox News | 1.2 million | 955,000 (+26 percent) | |
| CNN | 741,000 | 635,000 (+17 percent) | |
| MSNBC | 474,000 | 396,000 (+20 percent) |
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