CNN Target Audience Shrinks By 62 Percent

by B. Christopher Agee 
When determining a television network’s influence, no factor carries quite as much weight as its viewership numbers. For this reason, far left organizations CNN and MSNBC are in dire straits regarding their rapidly diminishing market share.
Comparing CNN’s audience to that of just one year ago, the steep drop in viewers is telling. During primetime, the network had 481,000 total viewers this month, with just 153,000 in the target demographic of viewers between the ages of 25 and 54. This marks a 62 percent decrease in viewership among that audience.
The results were similarly negative when comparing last November’s total day audience to monthly totals this year. With just 100,000 of the 335,000 total viewers in the target demographic, CNN’s viewership dropped nearly 60 percent in this measurement.

MSNBC fared slightly better during November, besting CNN’s results across the board. Still, neither network can hold a candle to cable news leader Fox News.
With more than 2 million primetime viewers, about 350,000 of whom fell into the target demographic, Fox News obviously offers a product viewers want. On the other hand, CNN and MSNBC remain so entrenched in their own ideology that they are quite literally causing people to tune them out by the millions.
It bears noting that last November’s totals were inflated throughout cable news due to the approaching presidential elections. The precipitous drops seen among CNN’s audience, however, were far beyond any losses experienced at Fox News.

Rupert Murdoch’s brainchild, for the sake of comparison, lost only about 20 percent of its election season audience in the intervening year.
CNN has apparently recognized its growing irrelevance, citing a desire to steer away from breaking news by featuring more documentaries on the network. Instead of acknowledging that executives and staff repeatedly failed to provide accurate coverage of news events, the network has instead decided to remove its emphasis on such coverage altogether.
Regardless, this pioneer in cable news has so irrevocably sullied its own reputation that CNN as a brand now appears destined for insignificance.
Photo credit: FLC (Creative Commons)