The Shift
Before the days of Nate Silver and 538 there was Reader’s Digest. Readers Digest had accurately predicted every presidential election and then came the 1936 election. They proudly announced that Al Landon would be the next president of the United States. In fact, it wasn’t going to be particularly close. They did a simple poll of all of their readers that had a home phone. Oops.
CNN didn’t make as big a blunder as Reader’s Digest, but they are facing the same kind of cruel reality. See, they are beginning to rebrand themselves as a more conservative outfit. Obviously, they can’t outfox Fox News and they certainly don’t want to go crazy like OAN or Newsmax, so they will struggle to find their place in the landscape.
See, most networks focus their attention on the 18-49 demographic group. They are usually the group with the most disposable income, children in school, and make up a majority of the population. Fox learned a long time ago that they weren’t the key demographic to focus on. They focused on the 50+ crowd. Two things are happening that impact the traditional way that television networks look at news coverage. First, the under 50 crowd doesn’t watch nearly as much news. We consume television differently. It’s hard to say whether that will change for us as we approach our fifties. Maybe we will be different from our parents.
The second factor is one area where we will never go back. We cut the cord over ten years ago and is it turned out we were slightly ahead of the curve. As it turns, the under 50 crowd makes up a huge majority of those cutting the cord. Cutting the cord may or may not impact network shows. Essentially, streaming services like Hulu, Paramount Plus, and Peacock offer those shows after the fact.
So, CNN is learning the hard way that there are fewer and fewer people in that key 18-49 group there to watch their network. That leaves the over 50 crowd and the over 50 crowd skews conservative. So, of course they will try to do the same. It’s probably the same reason that talk radio has always been conservative as well. It’s simple demographics.
It makes perfect sense when you think about it. Watch the commercials on network television the next time you actually have access to it. During the day, it is focused at people that likely aren’t working. Why aren’t they working? Personal injury? Need more training? Let’s show a Jim Adler commercial or a ITT Technical Tech commercial. If it’s something like Fox then maybe it’s alternative investing options like gold or reverse mortgages. Maybe it’s one of those apparatus’ that puts on your socks for you. Advertisers have figured it out. It was only a matter of time for CNN.
This is both scary and hopeful at the same time. On the hopeful end, nothing will ever be as bad or scary as it seems. The mainstream media will seemingly have us believing that the world is more dangerous and more right wing than what we think. If the only real options are right wing news then that will be who gets to shape the narrative. The American public is actually more progressive than those sources want you to believe.
The bad news is that people do not remain stagnant. They will change based on the information they receive. If they only receive information skewed to the right then they will also shift to the right. MSNBC has cast their lot. Fox, Newsmax, and OANN have cast their lot. CNN will need to be creative to find their niche in the market. Fox unfortunately has a head start.
I stopped watching CNN when they were at the height of their “bothsiderism.” I won’t, of course, watch it at all if they decide to skew conservative. I’m hoping, though, that they decide to become what Beau of the Fifth Column, over on Youtube calls “AP for TV.” I’d happily watch straight, no-nonsense, no schmoozing between co-anchors, just “Who, What, Where, When, and How” news. We’re in sore need of programming like that.
1thatotherjean @ 1,
We haven’t had just-the-facts-mam, who, what, where journalism since Cronkite and Reasoner.
I don’t watch MSM news on tv. I rely on news sites on the web, BBC and the Guardian.
2And here I thought Cambridge the data aggregator had taught the advertisers how to target. All this old woman gets are ads for incontinent products and Rx medications. Even on HGTV.
I do get a good feeling for what the Q and Storm-fronters are watching over on a website CityData forum. The politics and other controversies thread. That place leans so far right they can hardly stand and walk. Those folks will never accept any version CNN offers.
3I’m old enough (50+++) to remember the heyday of Newt Gingrich. At some point around that time a CNN honcho had a meeting with Gingrich and other NSGOPers – probably Tom DeLay and similar ilk – to discuss how to make CNN appeal more to conservatives.
So, this isn’t new at all. The only question is whether it will work and, if not, what they’ll do about it.
Money talks and b.s. – well, Faux News has shown us that b.s. hangs around, piles higher and deeper, and gets more rancid.
4I used to work for GM. About twenty+ years back we got televisions in our breakrooms and the UAW local union ran the feed. I complained a lot that the local was pumping Fox at us. It took a little while but I finally convinced the local to change the channel. What should show up during my break time? Nancy [f’ing] Grace. I watched CNN sporadically after that. That woman is evil.
When I transferred to another plant, to keep expenses down, I cut the cable. It disappoints me that CNN has decided to follow Fox down the rabbit hole, but i’m not missing anything. I’m a streamer at 69 and happy with that. A bonus is that I very rarely see ANY political ads.
5CNN spent about $300M to launch CNN+. It had 150K subscribers and 10K daily watchers. It lasted a month and now they are panicking. All the news networks are losing viewers and they can’t seem to understand why. Fox News is tops with an average 1.35M total daily viewers and a little over 2M prime time viewers which is a whopping .006% of the U.S. population. Evidently CNN wants to compete for a piece of that.
Upstart NewsNation out of Chicago claimed to be unbiased, we report – you decide, came out of the gate with a conservative slant and 100% of their advertising is aimed at the Medicare crowd (which includes me).
My guess is that viewership would increase if they lost the entertainment and opinion crap but they have to run something 24/7. I might be interested in watching again but nobody would be tuned in all day to a true news service and that’s the way it should be.
6It was the Literary Digest that cocked up their 1936 election forecast, and it was because, for the first time, they used telephones — which, still at that time, only relatively affluent people could afford. The debacle was so embarrassing that it is believed to have been the reason why the magazine ceased publication soon thereafter.
7I got rid of mine umpteen decades ago when I saw what was being pumped out to my 7 year olds. Added to that was the fact that I despise commercials, and I’ve never gone back. I can find what I want on the internet, and all the ad blockers keep me out of the line of fire.
8And my kids have raised their kids without TV as well.
9I had a discussion with a former student that is much further to the left than me. He pushed back for a second and then I asked him if he watches news on TV. He doesn’t, The Young Turks are not progressive enough for him. I suppose a part of the overall point was that when you have a group that is unrepresented then it will appear as if the nation is center-right. If that’s the only programming available then we become the sum of what is available. That is of course until there are free and fair elections.
10Frank Wilhoit @ 7. It wasn’t just that Lit Digest got it wrong. It was that it was on the wrong side of the biggest Electoral College landslide ever (to that point). My father used to joke that the old saw about, ‘As Maine goes, so goes the nation,’ was changed to ‘As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.’
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