Friday, March 25, 2005
Schiavo Fiasco Brings Viewers To Cable News
Source: New York Post The emotional and polit ically charged story of Terri Schiavo has been a big boost for cable news channels.
Nearly half a million extra viewers have been flocking to the cable news channels every night this week since the drama became 24/7 news .
That's a 14 percent jump of the audience over last year at this time.
"This is a life-and-death struggle being played out, in real time in everyone's living room," says CNN president Jon Klein.
Unlike the usual assortment of talking heads — who typically run over the same ground on cable during coverage of a big legal battle — the Schiavo case has sparked deep on-air discussions about religion, ethics and politics.
Klein says that public interest in the story took off last weekend when Congress held an emergency session to try and intervene in the case. The involvement of the Supreme Court, the president and Congress "really caught everybody's attention," he says.
"It showed the extraordinary lengths that important people would go in order to wrestle with this issue," says Klein.
# posted by ATN @ 9:31 AM 
