Network ratings (from this article and almost any other honest source) are DOWN

Newspaper sales (EXCEPT Wall Street Journal) of the top 25 Newspapers DOWN

What other common characteristics of these markets are consistent?
Perhaps political affiliation? (over 95% of “journalists” in these markets are reportedly Democrat).

Perhaps the reality is that your customers just don’t like your product and, they are moving their attention to other markets:

Fox News. Once, (not too long ago) they didn’t even exist! Now they set ratings records. Why?

AM Radio: In the 1960′s when FM broadcasting took off, this segment was D E A D!

What happened? Conservative talk radio started and revived a dying dinosaur, the AM radio band. Now AM Talkradio hosts set virtually all the ratings records in their timeslots and advertisers line up to pay for the process.

Puzzling. It must be hard to look in the mirror (if you are one of the “journalists”) each day and realize . . . I am a dinosaur. I am out of touch with my customer base.

remember: ube sunt

However you feel about bias one way or the other, always remember that the network news and CNN are the places to tune in if you want to know how handsome, talented and hard-working all of your elected officials are.

Of course the word “opinion” should be burned into everyone’s screens, no matter which news show they watch. Reporters are human and almost always let their own biases slip in. When they DON’T show their biases and opinions, that’s when the alarm bells should ring…but that will be a rarity.

News and opinion is too mixed up today.

Kilmeade’s job isn’t to make Doocey look smart, it’s to read the sports scores and introduce guests etc. He frequently screws up at all of these things. As he has not been fired for screwing up the sports reports, which is his main job, then the management aparently expects and tolerates his buffoonery.

None of this means that Fox News is forever tainted by his continued employment, unless NBC News is forever tainted for using the footage of rigged exploding fuel tanks in pickup trucks or CBS is forever tainted by the forged documents in the George Bush National Guard story. The list goes on and on but this comment is long enough already.

For the record the smart one on the Fox and Friends show is the blonde chick anyway.

The man spewed a purely ignorant statement. Marrying species? And his statement went uncorrected by the producers and news editors. It’s a case of verbal diarrhea from a moron. It’s not like he was hired to be part of Howard Stern’s Wack Pack.

How stupid do you have to be to make Steve Doocy look smart? And would that person be able to tie their shoelaces. Would the have to keep a drool bucket on their lap?

It is nice to know that people can just write off a “pure species” rant as merely schtick.

Mikey – It would be interesting to compare the rating share rather than population, since the US population had gone way up since then. Over the decades on the chart ABC apparently increased in viewership! Although I doubt it was an increase in share you’re probably right that it was WAY less of a hit than I and others in the thread might have thought.

I haven’t done this exercise myself but I think you will find that nightly news has held up better under the pressure of fragmentation than entertainment programming.

1. Kilmeade is NOT an anchor. He is the sports guy on the Fox News morning show, Fox and Friends.

2. One of Kilmeade’s scthicks is that he openly and probably knowingly says stupid and sometimes insensitive things. He regularly bungles introductions, interviews and frequently “misreads” the teleprompter. No one that regularly watches the Fox AM show takes anything that Kilmeade says seriously. He plays a buffoon on such a constant basis. For anyone to use him as an example of normal Fox anchors is an act of ignorance in and of itself.

3. The comments made re: Kilmeade here are the result of someone that doesn’t watch Fox News probably watching a Youtube clip that they probably were linked to by some left wing friend that doesn’t watch Fox News either.

Kilmeade is a moron who shouldn’t be allowed to speech unscripted since he can’t get basic science or history right. He’s Jessica Simpson dumb

at least at the end of PTI, stat boy corrects any facts that were screwed up during the show,

A viewer should want a news channel to get terms right.

Smearing Fox News for ignoring that comment is like smearing MSNBC for all the comments Imus made that they had ignored until Al Sharpton stepped in. But then again, this is an article about network news decline, so they all should be smeared.

My fear is that news will become like PANA. Has anyone read the syndicated feed from the Pan African News Association? Every article is an editorial opinion with a snippet of facts, but there’s little fact checking since Africa is so spread out that it is expensive to verify information, but it’s cheap just to ask someone for some spot news. Maybe PANA is the network news future, cheap but shallow.

For those of you who just want the news without opinion, that’s what Headline News did on cable for years…until opinion became more profitable. If you think you’re living the good life with Google News and Yahoo News (all of whom copy the AP feed) then just wait until they’re underbid like PANA underbids Reuters’ correspondents. It will be a total info meltdown.

Even his forced apology didn’t address his ignorance.

Unless you think Kilmeade was right about Americans marrying other species?

Possibly part of the problem is that reporters are human. Yes, yes, I’m serious. I honestly think that reporters … for the most part … are human. And being human, they cannot forever stand on the sidelines and not “do” something. They feel they know better. The reason they feel they know better is that they feel they are more informed due to constantly covering the news. Feeling they’re better informed and thus wiser, better educated, and you know they think they’re smarter than anyone else, they feel it is their duty to lead us unwashed masses to the truth and right way. They think things are too important to leave it up to us simple-minded common folk to make the major decisions so they “help” us make it. They “interpret” the news for us. They present what they think is important. And this is why us the public think they’re biased and we are right.

What I think is a great development is the internet and how it is now giving voice to many others. Saying this as an realist (a.k.a. atheist that doesn’t believe in an afterlife), god bless bloggers. I think they’re the future of news. They definitely don’t let the mainstream news get away with as many falsehoods as they did in the past. This pointing out that the emperor isn’t wearing clothes has hurt the reputation of mainstream news, but that’s good. They really weren’t wearing clothes and it is great that people are now pointing this out.

Where is the news headed? That’s hard to say. I think bloggers will be a major part of it. As more and more us advertisers start paying to advertise on news blogs, more of them will go full-time and news coverage will improve. I look forward to the day when news bloggers are jetting all over the world to cover breaking news, when they’re the major at Presidential news conferences, and when Google News lists them first.

It seems that the best way to beat Fox’s ratings would be to have a competing conservative news network – not one that is balanced with constant guests from all sides, as Fox has, but only conservative guests. Give that large, committed audience more of what made Fox News a hit. The fact that such an obvious opening for market leadership exists, but that no one has attempted it (except its near mirror opposite in MSNBC) says a lot about the biases in the media and the decline of Broadcast Evening News than it does about the people who notice this.

Richard Steven Hack: I agree that reporting isn’t that great, but getting all one’s reporting from the Internet isn’t the greatest either. Internet people can make things up to appeal the biases of their audiences even more transparently then Dan Rather’s “false but accurate” reporting due to the smaller audience’s smaller chance for collective oversight.

What does this mean for the future of news? Maybe Iran doesn’t have nukes. Or maybe the moon landing never occurred. Who knows what will be reported and how it will shape elections?

For the first time I’m wondering whether the decline of broadcast news is truly a bad thing.

There’s a big difference being fed partisan news (Fox News) and going online and looking up different news sites all over (grassroots, blogs, news agencies) and getting all of the answers instead of being fed partisan news (Fox News).

That’s why you do not see young people ever watching Fox News, it’s a dinosaur and they haven’t adapted to the new technology (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

Years ago, William Casey, the head of the CIA, declared – and he wasn’t joking – that the CIA owned or controlled ALL the major news outlets.

That may be conspiracy theory, but the fact is the so-called “news establishment” is fundamentally part of the system that controls society. It’s not and never was intended to be “investigative” or “confrontational” or anything like that, except occasionally on a local level (and not often there).

The Internet damaged the control of the news by allowing people to easily find alternative viewpoints, “suppressed” news, and the like. Of course, only a handful of people compared to “the great unwashed” do that. But it’s enough, along with the comedic lack of ability on the part of people like the various spastic news “anchors” which is painfully obvious to even the idiots watching, to cause broadcast news to go down.

People back in Cronkite’s day were simply naive enough to believe what he said and believe that he had any real clue about what was going on. Compare what was reported to what has been revealed in the history books and subsequent exposes and you can see that the news has always been manipulated and shaped.

All you can get from the conventional news these days is the “bare facts’ – if that. You’ll get nothing in terms of accurate explanations about what’s really going on.

Take the so-called “Iran crisis”. Anybody who researches the situation seriously will discover that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and probably never had one. At best, they may have had a nuclear research DATABASE program – which is not surprising if you’re the military of a country threatened by another country with over 200 illegal, uncontrolled nuclear weapons (i.e., Israel), not to mention the world’s biggest superpower with thousands of nuclear weapons. You will search in vain for any indication in the mainstream press that this is the true situation. Instead, any event concerning this issue will be reported from the assumption that Iran is in fact pursuing a nuclear weapons development and deployment program. We have a President and a Secretary of State and numerous Congressmen declaring this to be absolutely true. And in fact, it’s not.

So where is “investigative journalism” on this issue? No where to be found.

You can’t kill broadcast news too soon.

Just a wish.

As to the real reason for the evening news decline, it’s EVERYTHING in this thread. Death by a thousand cuts.

I think that’s part of the reason why O’Riley is so popular. He’s on at 8:00 which is more convenient for most working viewers.

1. Political Bias (Left Leaning…when a majority of the population is moderate to conservative).

2. Internet. (Why tune in at a specific time when you can just go online and read the news you want to read).

3. Quality of the stories presented (How many specials about Obama, Michael Jackson, Obama, Obama, Obama etc…can one watch before being overly saturated)

4. Local Network News ( Most local broadcasts now have newscasts at 5pm and 6pm and 10pm)

5. 24 hour news from Foxnews, CNN, MSNBC, etc…. By the time 7pm comes up, what has changed?

“And that’s the way it is….” RIP Cronkite!

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Beside TV delivery methods there are some really telling historical linkages one could make to the graph, but those are neither here nor there.

@Partisans – perception of media bias is tied to self-perception of party position on an inverse relation. See several issues of communication quarterly from the late 80s.

@Folks who think about dinnertime – concur on experience, could this be the larger issue of life/time/shift which is undertheorized in the comment streams on dvrs and such.

*Political bias in the news reports (real or perceived)

*Local and national news agencies shifting to “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality (real or perceived)

*Sensationalizing presentation of news (real or perceived), aka tabloid format.

*Quality control issues driven by a “be first, not factual” mentality in breaking news stories, which leads to inaccuracies, structurally flawed reports, lazy or nonexistent fact-checking, and embarrassing retractions (anyone remember the Sago Mine “miracle” declaration of 12 miners who survived? I do… and the correction later when it was only 1 survivor. Nice work, guys.) that can put doubt into the veracity of any work done by a news organization

*Quality control issues in reporters (political bias — perceived or real, celebrity status interfering with job requirements; less capable/competent/caring people doing the job; an apparent lack of knowledge in regard to what the words ethics, neutral, objective, journalism, and facts mean; reporters acting as advocates while doing their job — perceived or real)

*Layoffs and cost cutting undermining the news division’s abilities to do a proper job of gathering and reporting information

*Infotainment creep (news is now sold as entertainment, at least in part, and news readers, knowingly or otherwise, develop a set of acting voices and facial expressions that are used in different circumstances — violent crime, government issues, disasters, politics, etc)

*Advent and growth of Internet (mainly after 1995, but probably — can’t prove so supposing here — explosive growth of use as information source from 2000 onward)

*Advent and growth of non-over-the-air news channels (cable, satellite) including CNN and its siblings, Fox News, MSNBC, and financial networks (who sometimes deliver news as well)

*Advent and growth of non-over-the-air channels in general for people who don’t want to listen to or hear the news and are looking for viewing alternatives — as well as more original programming — on other channels (USA Network, SyFy {I HATE that renaming}, Lifetime, TLC, Disney, TNT, etc) for such people.

*Lifestyle changes (more 2 income families, standard daily routines no longer
apply in most homes i.e. 9-to-5 rare work schedule these days, folks simply tuning out to focus on their personal crises, such as layoffs, family problems, financial problems, etc)

*More gloom-and-doom delivered in the broadcasts resulting in a switched-off television so dinner can be enjoyed in peace. This is speculation on my part here but, this may be in part because of an increase (perceived or real) of disturbing images, including blood-soaked and/or mangled victims of war, crime, accidents, and so forth, aired on news presentations these days, and in much clearer picture and color (and now HDTV) quality. Who wants to look at that while having a spaghetti and meatballs dinner? This may tie in with the “if it bleeds” and “be first, not factual” situations.

Feel free to add or amend this list, of course

Oh, as for the nightly evening news broadcast… my personal opinion is that it should be dropped. 22 minutes to cover events of the day is about as helpful as a Discover card is to a coyote. Give the time to the locals and let them use it or run another game show, a local program of a positive nature, or even an infomercial. It would be a better use of the time. Just my opinion, free of charge

Those conditions have fostered a local newscast that is focused on weather, crime, and more weather. The local ABC affiliate here in Cincinnati is now turning to viewers to send in videos of “news” as well as equipping all their staff with a cheap video camera just in case they pass “news” on their daily travels.

The big question is, which major network will be the first to do away with it’s 6:30 EST newscast? They’ll keep a news division for the morning shows and prime time news shows as well as breaking news, but I think one of the Big Three will call it a day soon. (CBS would be my pick.)

Who exactly gave an opposing view when the anchor on Fox News who went on a rant about how pure races (like the folks in Finland) are better compared to our mongrel breeding in America? Looks up Brian Kilmeade’s recent comments and ponder why this guy is on a news channel? “We keep marrying other species” he declares. Is this the home school science genius you want give you the hard news?

I don’t think it really has anything to do with the increasingly ‘leftward’ bias of the news – the media has ALWAYS traditionally been left wing, going as far back as the 30s and 40s. I don’t think people just “suddenly” realized how left wing most news orgs were.