Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Will a Victory For Democrats be a Victory for CNN?
CNN co-founder Reese Schonfeld says his theory of good news for Democrats, means good news for CNN's ratings, will now be put to the test due to the results of yesterday's elections:
"Now is the time to test my theory that some of FoxNews supremacy in the ratings is due to the political success of the Bush administration. For six years it’s been pretty much good news for Republicans. Last night was not good news for them. Will FoxNews ratings decline based on my theory that people tend to watch good news rather than bad as demonstrated by the post-boom decline of CNBC.
Last week (10/30 – 11/05) Fox destroyed CNN, beating them by more than two-to-one in prime time. To my knowledge that’s the first time it ever happened. In total day Fox had almost twice as many viewers as CNN, another low point.
CNN spent far too much time nattering away about political trivia, far too much opinion, far too many interviews with stale or unknown experts. Fox’s conservative agenda is accepted and appreciated by most of its audience. CNN, particularly Wolf Blitzer, in its fear as being branded as liberal, adopted an antagonistic attitude toward most Democrats and was, for most of the week, almost unwatchable so the viewers didn’t watch and Fox had its best week maybe ever.
But that was last week, this week the news is good for the Democrats, maybe the Democrats will enjoy watching it and spend more time at their television sets. Next week is the critical week for my theory. Will conservatives, saddened by their defeat, abandon Fox? Will liberals, with gloat in their hearts, spend more time on CNN and MSNBC? What about the week and the week after that? The ratings will tell and I’ll be watching. I hope I won’t be eating crow."
"Now is the time to test my theory that some of FoxNews supremacy in the ratings is due to the political success of the Bush administration. For six years it’s been pretty much good news for Republicans. Last night was not good news for them. Will FoxNews ratings decline based on my theory that people tend to watch good news rather than bad as demonstrated by the post-boom decline of CNBC.
Last week (10/30 – 11/05) Fox destroyed CNN, beating them by more than two-to-one in prime time. To my knowledge that’s the first time it ever happened. In total day Fox had almost twice as many viewers as CNN, another low point.
CNN spent far too much time nattering away about political trivia, far too much opinion, far too many interviews with stale or unknown experts. Fox’s conservative agenda is accepted and appreciated by most of its audience. CNN, particularly Wolf Blitzer, in its fear as being branded as liberal, adopted an antagonistic attitude toward most Democrats and was, for most of the week, almost unwatchable so the viewers didn’t watch and Fox had its best week maybe ever.
But that was last week, this week the news is good for the Democrats, maybe the Democrats will enjoy watching it and spend more time at their television sets. Next week is the critical week for my theory. Will conservatives, saddened by their defeat, abandon Fox? Will liberals, with gloat in their hearts, spend more time on CNN and MSNBC? What about the week and the week after that? The ratings will tell and I’ll be watching. I hope I won’t be eating crow."
# posted by ATN @ 4:36 PM 
