SMALLEST AUDIENCE YET
It's a record audience by far for NewsNation, but the audience largely tuned out
Category: By The Numbers
PLAYING THE PERCENTAGES
NewsNation inches along
WHETHER TRUST OR EXHAUSTION, WE DON’T WATCH NEWS THE WAY WE USED TO
Either way, it doesn’t make for a well-informed public.
IN CASE YOU KEEP TRACK OF THE NUMBERS
The second GOP presidential debate audience was down 25%
STREAMING OPTIONS HAVE AUDIENCES TUNING OUT BROADCAST TV
The percentage of viewers avoiding broadcast tv approaches 50%
HOW’S THAT TWITTER PROGRAM WORKING OUT FOR TUCKER CARLSON?
Apparently, about as well as Twitter is doing up against Threads
THE TOPSY-TURVY WORLD OF CABLE NEWS
MSNBC showing strength against FOX. The Malone-driven CNN languishes
WE’RE NUMBER 73!
NewsNation continues as a network in search of an audience
NEWSNATION EXPANDS MORNING NEWSCAST, BENEFITS FROM INCOMPLETE REPORTING
When your viewer base is extraordinarily low, be sure to emphasize any increase in percentages.
TOP OF THE HEAP….FOR NOW
The Trump indictment meant a winning night for MSNBC
TV NEWS FALLS SHORT IN VIEWER TRUST
News consumers conclude local media does a lousy job of holding public officials accountable
CNN’S TRUMP BUMP TURNS INTO A GIANT POTHOLE
The ratings woes only get worse
CNN CRATERS, FOX NOT FAR BEHIND
It trailed Newsmax on Friday night. NEWSMAX!!!!
FOX RATINGS WOES AT EIGHT PM ARE MOUNTING
Tucker viewers going “cold turkey” are experiencing withdrawal pains
DO GEN Z AND MILLENNIALS REALLY WANT AND SUPPORT NEWS?
This study emphatically says “Yes”
CNN’S MAKEOVER SO FAR ISN’T MAKING IT WITH VIEWERS
As the shuffles and repositionings go on, the network hits new lows
TRYING TO ATTRACT AN AUDIENCE THAT DOESN’T SEEM TO CARE
Hiring cable re-treads and touting “moderate” coverage is falling flat
AND THE GREAT EXODUS THIS YEAR WAS IN….CINCINNATI
Sure, turnover is expected but this…???
AND THE REAL WINNER OF THE WARNOCK-WALKER SENATE RACE IS…
Ka-chinnnnnggg!!!!
DISNEY EMPLOYEES BRACE FOR LAYOFFS
It’s belt-tightening time for media giant
POLITIC$, MEDIA AND CA$H – A PO$T-MORTEM
Record hauls and unexpected drops made a bit of a fiscal roller coaster Now that life has returned to what passes for normal these days, let’s take a look at how the big tv ...
RTDNA’S ANNUAL SALARY SURVEY IS OUT
Mid-markets $ up. Big markets $ down
TRUSTING IN MEDIA – A VANISHING SENTIMENT
You can spread the blame around
THE PRICE OF NEXSTAR’S AMBITION….AND DEBT
Blackout on Fios might reach $12 million per month
AN IDEA THAT DIDN’T WORK OUT AS EXPECTED
It must have seemed like a good idea at the time to SOMEBODY in Hunt Valley, MD. Or maybe it was an attempt to ease the sting of losing out on the Tribune station ...
HERE’S THE REASON ALL THESE NEW NEWSCASTS ARE POPPING UP
UPDATE: In its second quarter Gray Television booked $90 million in political ad revenue. Nary a fact check was conducted. Over the years we have done a number of stories about the addiction tv ...
NEXSTAR CONTINUES THE RO$Y FIRST QUARTER NEWS FOR TV GROUPS
First it was Gray, then came Tegna s/t/b Standard Media. And now it is Nexstar’s turn. The first quarter of 2022 saw the company’s net revenue rise 8.6% from the same quarter of 2021 ...
WILL THE LAST TV NEWS IN ALBANY JUST TURN OUT THE LIGHTS?
Four reporters. Five Days. That’s how many reporters have departed Albany regional tv newsrooms in short period. From left to right…. Melissa Lee is leaving Sinclair’s WRGB and for the time being will be ...
HOW MUCH DOES A CYBERATTACK COST?
When the folks at Sinclair Broadcast Group delivered their 4th quarter financial results Wednesday morning, one tidbit stood out among the rest for us. Even though the company never paid out on a ransomware ...
“NEWS NATION” SUFFERING RATINGS STARVATION
What if they launched a revamped national news effort and nobody came? We seem to be finding out with this week’s much-ballyhooed relaunch of the former WGN America as “News Nation.” Monday night, the ...
WELL WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED THIS?
THE HEADLINES: “Nexstar 3Q Revenue Soars 68.5%” “Gray 3Q Revenue Climbs 17%” “Meredith Station Quarterly Revenue Up 17%” Pandemic, Schmandemic. Political revenue exploded, not surprisingly, in the run-up to the election and the wheelbarrows ...
AN INSANE ELECTION YEARS BODES WELL FOR CABLE NEWS
People are watching the news. There’s no question about that. And according to the “Atlanta Journal Constitution,” it’s not difficult to figure out which television networks are benefiting from the presidential election, ...
NOTHING CAN CHANGE THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
Time was that an Hispanic station in a major community was something of a ratings outlier in the market, serving a small, but significant portion of the community. That’s been changing in recent years, ...
TOUGH TIMES IN THE VALLEY
It’s been a rough year for Valley PBS in Fresno, CA. Just last June, the station fired its CEO, Fresno tv news veteran reporter Jenny Toste after she spent a mere six months on ...
EVENING AND LOCAL NEWS SURGE IN COVID-19 WAKE
One of the positive developments we’ve seen since our lives were upended by the coronavirus public health emergency is a resurgence of both the evening newscasts on broadcast networks and local news. It seems ...
WATCHDOGS?
Nearly three out of four U.S. adults (73%) say that it’s generally important for journalists to function as watchdogs over elected officials, according to a new analysis of data from Pew Research Center’s Election News Pathways project. ...
MONEY TALKS. BROADCASTERS LISTEN
How about these numbers? $1.32 billion. $773.1 million. $723.1 million. Just under three BILLION dollars. Those numbers represents what, respectively, Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC expect to rake in in the next 10 ...
TV STILL #1 NEWS SOURCE
Reports of the death of tv news appears to be premature. A new Hill-HarrisX poll found that TV is still the most widely used news platform among Americans, despite the rise of the internet ...
BLACKOUTS COME WITH A PRICE
300,000 to 350,000. Those are the nice round numbers offered up by AT&T as the company’s guesstimate of how many DirecTV subscribers they have lost/are losing as the result of those interminable blackouts of ...
THE CORD-CUTTING SPEEDS UP
The continued AT&T-CBS imbroglio may be a negative for the networks local stations, but it’s been a good thing for the CBS All Access streaming service which has been a significant uptick in subscribers ...
THE BLACKOUT TAKES ITS TOLL
Why should we be so concerned about the standoff between Nexstar and AT&T? Or, for that matter, the one between AT&T and CBS? The fifth week of the standoff between Nexstar and AT&T begins ...
NO QUICK FIX FOR O’DONNELL
If you’d read the headlines during the first week of Norah O’Donnell’s debut as anchor of the “CBS Evening News”, you would have thought a cratering of epic proportions was taking place every night ...
HIGHER SALARIES=IMPROVED TV NEWS? TRY IT
We had a general manager back in the day who once told us his standard response to anyone who came into his office and claimed “Pay me more and I’ll do a better job” ...
NO PAY HIKE FOR PERRY
Let’s all shed a tear for Nexstar CEO Perry Sook. Nexstar stockholders emphatically rejected a bid to hand him $41.4 million in future stock awards for all of his hard work in gobbling up ...
SIGNS OF SUCCESS AT “CBS THIS MORNING”
The early signs seem to indicate that the shakeup at “CBS This Morning” in which Gayle King emerged the top dog of the new morning team is working out fairly well for the network. ...
CARLSON SPONSORS ARE SCARCE
Sponsor boycotts never really work the way their promoters want them to and, yes, they are a REALLY BAD IDEA.! But we would still be remiss if we didn’t note that fewer and fewer ...
NEXSTAR UNLOADS
And just like that, Nexstar seems to have solved its market conflict problems standing in the way of the deal to buy Tribune Media. Scripps and Tegna are taking a combined 19 stations off ...
THEY GET PAID FOR THIS?
Regular NewsBlues consumers already know the low regard in which we hold the endless parade of talking head gasbags who infest the airwaves of cable news networks. But we’ve often wondered just how much ...
WHY YOU WILL NEVER SEE CAMPAIGN SPENDING REFORM
It’s summed up in this headline: “NEXSTAR SETS Q4 REVENUE RECORD ON FLURRY OF POLITICAL ADVERTISING SPENDING” Expect to see more such headlines in the days, months and weeks ahead. Political advertising is the ...
GRAY SNAPS UP THREE MORE TV STATIONS
Say goodbye to United Communications’ as a tv station owner. Gray Television is snapping up the three stations currently owned by the Wisconsin-based media company. Gray is shelling out $45 million for WWNY/WNYF in ...
MORE GRAYCOM CONFLICTS ACQUIRED BY TEGNA
Tegna also picked up a couple of stations that Graycom had to divest in order to marry. The company snapped up WTOL in Toledo, OH, and KWES in Midland-Odessa, TX, for $105 million cash. ...
TELEMUNDO CONTINUES TO EXPAND
It’s nothing on the scale of Nexstar swallowing up Tribune, but then what is? Telemundo plans to buy Serestar Communication’s Sacramento and Salt Lake City stations. KCSO (Sacramento) and KTMW (Salt Lake City) are ...
“SETTLE FOR MORE”? PROBABLY NOT
The week after NBC unceremoniously dumped Megyn Kelly and her weekday hour, ostensibly over her “blackface” debacle, the ratings for that hour jumped 5%. Not a good negotiating point as Kelly’s attorneys try to ...
$$$$ POLITICAL BONANZA THIS YEAR
Television stations in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia, all the scenes of hotly-contested political contests, are the lucky recipients of a quarter-BILLION dollar windfall in political ...
MADDOW TAKES A BOW
We don’t often dwell on ratings stories – especially cable news ratings which are still dwarfed by broadcast television in virtually every timeslot. But it is interesting to note that last week, MSNBC’s Rachel ...
FLORENCE BY THE NUMBERS
17 deaths: The number of fatalities as of Sunday afternoon. 740,000+: The number of customers without power in the Carolinas on Sunday. 112 mph: That’s how hard the wind gusted in North Carolina’s New ...
FLORENCE BY THE NUMBERS
Here is a breakdown of Hurricane Florence and its expected effects: Category 1 storm 400 miles: the storm’s diameter, which is approximately the size of four Ohios put together 90 mph: top expected wind ...
IN LOCAL TV NEWS WE TRUST
There might be trust and accuracy issues dogging all media these days, thanks to a variety of factors including a hostile administration, the need to have the story first at the expense of facts ...
DON’T CRY TOO HARD FOR TRIB EXECS – THEY STILL GET BONUSES
Maybe the payout to several Trib execs isn’t equal to the several wheelbarrows-full each would have gotten by selling out to Sinclair, but somehow, in the wake of the collapse of that deal, they’re ...
THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A BIT
Despite their stated devotion to the Constitution, it appears that a plurality of Republicans would be ok with giving the Trump Administration the power to shut down certain news outlets. That’s the finding from ...
CORD-CUTTER #S EXPECTED TO SOAR THIS YEAR
The number will cause nightmares across the cable industry, traditional television and ripple out through marketers. Cord-cutting is outpacing the best industry estimates and is on track this year to reach 33 million adults ...
MSNBC HOST’S BLOG WOES TRIGGERS BIG AUDIENCE DROP
She’s still got the job but the audience…well that’s another matter. Joy Reid appears to have survived the turmoil surrounding the avalanche of her old homophobic blog posts that had resurfaced in recent months. ...
THE FOX-COMCAST WAR OVER SKY HEATS UP
21st Century Fox on Wednesday fired the opening salvo in the bidding war for Europe’s pay tv service Sky TV by offering more than $18 a share, about a 12% increase of Comcast’s latest ...
DISNEY TO MOVE NYC OPS TO WEST VILLAGE
Kelly Ripa, Ryan Seacrest and the kids from “The View” are taking a trip to downtown New York – along with the rest of Walt Disney’s Big Apple operations. Robert A. Iger, chairman and ...
IS THIS REALLY A SURPRISE?
After decades, you unceremoniously dump your still-popular anchor, who only too happily shares the method of her dumping with the public. Three former staffers sue you for discrimination, and share juicy stories of your ...
LIFE AFTER LAUER
Next week marks six months since Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie were teamed up to host the “Today Show” following the abrupt dismissal of Matt Lauer. “We’re falling into a rhythm,” Kotb said. “We ...
NEWSROOM DIVERSITY HITS ALL-TIME HIGH
A recent RTDNA-Hofstra study showed the percentage of people of color in newsrooms has surpassed a record previously set in 2001. That’s the good news. The more sobering news is that minority representation in ...
HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE MERGER MANIA?
As Disney and Comcast throw all caution to the winds in their haste to swallow up the big chunks of 21st Century Fox that Rupert Murdoch no longer wants, is there anything either of ...
MORE NEWS, FEWER NEWSROOMS
The good news is that record 1,072 TV stations are running local news, according to a new RTDNA/Hofstra survey, the fourth installment of their annual local TV and radio newsroom survey. The bad news ...
UH-OH…
It was supposed to be a comfortable hammock that could provide a healthy ratings environment for “Megyn Kelly Today.” Instead, her 9 AM timeslot on NBC is taking a toll on its supporting poles, ...
FOX HAVING TROUBLE SELLING ITS MARQUEE STARS?
They might be at the top of the heap in the cable ratings, but there are signs that it is rough going for Fox News in the advertising department. Between the ad boycott still ...
LOST: 1.8 MILLION VIEWERS
If found, please contact CBS, ABC and NBC. In the past two years, the three networks’ morning shows have shed just under two million viewers – percent of their total viewership. But nobody has ...
BAKISH WOULD RATHER TALK ACCOMPLISHMENTS – NOT LITIGATION
In the high drama surrounding the just-filed lawsuit by CBS against its majority shareholder, the quiet doesn’t come from Shari Redstone, the shareholder or Les Moonves, the CBS CEO who would like her to ...
SINCLAIR UNLOADS SEVEN STATIONS ON FOX
Is the fifth time the charm for Sinclair Broadcast Group and its dream of gobbling up Tribune Media? For the purchase price of just under $1 billion ($910 million to be exact), Fox is ...
COMCAST PREPARES ALL-CASH BID FOR FOX
Comcast is reportedly lining up the armored trucks in an attempt to rip the bulk of 21st Century Fox’s film an tv assets away from Disney. Reuters reports that Comcast is speaking with investment ...
TV NEWS PAY UP IN 2017, BUT NOT BY MUCH
When it comes to wages, working in tv news is a bit better than other industries in the long run. But 2017 was a somewhat stagnant year. According to an RTDNA-Hofstra University survey, over ...
NEXSTAR SEEKS HUGE STOCK BUYBACK
One of the pitfalls of running a business is the stockholders sometimes have a pesky way of inserting themselves into your day-to-day operations. So it follows that the less stockholders, the fewer headaches you ...
NEXSTAR EXEC PAY DWARFS SINCLAIR EXECS
Yesterday we took a look at the executive compensation enjoyed by top guys at Sinclair Broadcast Group as it prepares to take over Tribune Media. Now about the other elephant in the tv room ...
AT SINCLAIR, WHERE’S THE MONEY?
Let’s take a quick look at the Sinclair 2018 proxy statement to find out. Everybody wants to be David Smith, who makes about 300% more than anybody else in salary, stock options and bonuses, ...
MEGYN’S ANEMIC RATINGS AREN’T CUTTING IT
We checked when someone pointed it out to us and, sure as shootin’, we hadn’t done a Megyn Kelly piece in months – which actually says more about a dearth of interest in her ...
WHY ARE THESE GUYS SMILING?
You’d be smiling too if, like Rupert (center), Lachlan (left) and James (right) Murdoch, you were due to get a chunk of a $206 million golden parachute when Disney’s $52+ billion purchase of the ...
NIELSEN WANTS YOU TO BE COUNTED – NO MATTER WHERE
Portable People Meters are the next big thing as local stations and networks are tired of missing out on credit for folks watching in sports bars, airport waiting areas and even other peoples’ homes. ...
TEEVEE NEWS JOBS SURPASS NEWSPAPER JOBS
That headline sums it up. For the first time in the 20 years these studies have been done by RTDNA in conjunction with Hofstra University, total local TV news employment has surpassed total newspaper ...
CBS STUNTS TO CLAIM A GOOD WEEK.
A sharp-eyed NewsBlueser who obviously pays close attention to these things, sent along a take on the latest spin from the CBS Pee-yar folks: The network sent out a flash touting the “Evening News’” ...
MADDOW HAS MORE EYES, COOPER RAKES IN MORE $$$
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow regularly comes out in front of CNN’s Anderson Cooper in the total number of viewers. But when it comes to ad revenue, Cooper is the winner. That’s because his ad rates ...
ADVERTISING FORECAST: -30% BY 2023
This does not bode at all well for the future of local television – or network teevee for that matter. One of Madison Avenue’s most visionary futurists predicts the ability of advertising to actually ...
SINCLAIR STICKS WITH NIELSEN
Last year, Sinclair Broadcast Group with toying with the idea of dumping Nielsen in favor of comScore. Scratch that. Sinclair signed a new multi-year deal with Nielsen, the details of which are none of ...
O’REILLY RETURNS TO MUTED FANFARE
OK, fair’s fair. And this characterization of Bill O’Reilly’s return to cable tv Tuesday night is anything but. While you might want to indulge in a bit of schadenfreude over the terrible numbers, O’Reilly’s ...
CORD-CUTTERS LIKE THE $$ SAVINGS
Some more chin shots and body blows to the traditional teevee business’ future can be found in a recent survey of both cord cutting consumers and cable customers. Cord cutters say they are saving ...
WINNERS AND LOSERS IN BOSTON
It’s been a little over a year since NBC pulled its affiliation from Sunbeam’s WHDH and created its own station in the market. The Boston Globe looked at the ratings situation since that bitter ...
“GMA” BREAKS “TODAY’S” SEVEN WEEK WIN STREAK
For the weekend ending January 19, “Good Morning America” won the overall viewership. But “Today” is still very much in the game, winning the coveted 25-54 demo. “Good Morning America” attracted an average of ...
MATT WHO?
The new Number One morning team on network news is, without question, SavHoda. Or HodaSav. Or KoThrie. For the sixth straight week, the “Today Show” is the top-rated network morning show. Last week marked ...
LOCAL NEWS VIEWERS LEAVING EN MASSE
So says the Pew Research Center and can you say you’re really surprised? According to Pew, just 50% of U.S. adults now get news regularly from television, down from 57% a year prior in ...
2017’S TOP CABLE TALK PROGRAMS
We’ll put the disclaimer at the top: As a general rule, the lowest-rated broadcast network evening newscast more than doubles the top-rated prime-time cable noiser. That said, what are the average audience numbers of ...
“TODAY” KEEPS WINNING, POST-LAUER
You have to wonder if the executives at NBC are asking each other just what the hell they thought they were getting for the $25 million they were paying Matt Lauer to front “The ...
“TODAY SHOW” RATINGS SURGE POST-LAUER
Tell us again how incredibly important Matt Lauer was to “The Today Show?” For the second consecutive week, the first two hours of the NBC morning program surged ahead of the show’s main rival, ...
ZOMBIE STATION SOLD FOR $6 MILLION
Another day, another zombie tv station sold. This time it’s independent KOFY in San Francisco being sold by Silver Point Capital to Stryker Media 2 . Zombies are stations that sold their spectrum in ...
NEWSEUM TOP DC ATTRACTION – STILL LOSING $$
As industry self-congratulatory gestures go, you can’t beat the Newseum, one of the more imposing buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue in the District of Columbia. Memorabilia, multi-media displays, mini-studios where visitors can indulge their ...