Suffering News Burnout? The Rest of America Is, Too

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/11/business/media/11EYES.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5062&en=ec09a1d84a5bac3c&ex=1061179200&partner=GOOGLE

Has the nation's television audience burned out on serious news?

American soldiers are dying in Iraq almost daily, questions are continuing to swirl around the Bush administration's case for the March invasion and United States Marines are poised off the coast of Liberia. At home, decisions by the Supreme Court prompted national debates on affirmative action and gay rights, a basketball star stands accused of sexual assault and the California governorship suddenly hangs in the balance. And yet, television news viewers are tuning out.

--snip--

"CBS Evening News" has been particularly hard hit; in late June, CBS, which is owned by Viacom Inc., had one of its least-watched weeks for its nightly news report in at least a decade, and perhaps in its history, according to Nielsen Media Research. The audience of ABC, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, is down nearly 600,000 from last year. Among the broadcasters, only NBC, which is a unit of the General Electric Company, has bucked the tune-out trend this summer.

--snip--

As for cable, CNN's daily audience during June and July was, on average, 413,000 people, down from 502,000 last summer, according to Nielsen Media Research, and much smaller than its audience of 2.5 million during the thick of the war. The daily average audience for MSNBC, which is owned by the Microsoft Corporation and G.E., fell from 254,000 last summer to 197,000 this one — which is down from 1.3 million during the war.

And while the average daily audience at Fox News grew to 753,000, compared with 612,000 during last summer's two-month period, the audience was nowhere the average of 3.2 million people who watched Fox News each evening during the thick of the Iraq fighting.

--snip--

NBC has given the heaviest coverage of Iraq of the three newscasts in recent weeks. Fox News Channel has not exactly shied away from Iraq, either.

That could part of the reason too.

And IMHO there sure is more pressing stuff this year than last. Not to mention at least in the Northeast it's been a rainy summer which I would think would have more people indoors watching TV.

....the White House rejoices when people stop watching the news.

Maybe more and more people are just getting tired of being spood fed distractions and lies.

We have a winner!

Just now when Karl and the OSP are losing their hold over the 'media', people 'lose interest' in watching the news ...

Hmmm. Sounds like something Karl planted, IMO ...
"Don't watch, America - you won't miss anything but those unimportant little hearings on 9/11 ...
and the Democratic candidates debates ...
and the latest on how shitty the economy is ...
and the developments on the touch-screen voting fiasco ...
and how many soldiers have died in Iraq since we told you the war is over ... "


:eyes:

n/t

I KNOW I CERTAINLY AM.

I listen on the way in to work and on the way home. Sure beats the traditional network news.

...and Ah-nuld. Instead of focusing on personalities, perhaps the news networks might start reporting actual news, especially what is really happening with the Bush gang.

I think we're all burned out on personality cults. PBS has seen a huge increase in viewers when they air the nightly BBC half hour, so you'd think the networks would catch a clue.

People aren't burned out on news. They're just burned out on tabloid crapola masquerading as news. Bryant can be discusses on the sports section. Ah-nuld will be news if he ever says something that isn't a platitude or a catch phrase from one of his movies.

Haven't watched network news in many, many years. Gave up cable news for good during the all-anthrax, all-the-time nonsense.

I wouldn't waste my time with any of it. I stay quite well informed via newspaper and online sources. I don;t even bother reading Newsweek any longer. Just give it a quick skim and read the less blatent propaganda stories.

night they devoted themselves 2 following a white bronco down the 405. Stopped watching networks during 'the trial of the century'. Never have watched fux. Watch BBC on PBS & 'Journal' on WorldLink. Over the weekend a friend suggested CNN International. So I'll give it a watch soon.

(I) stopped watching CNN the night they devoted themselves 2 following a white bronco down the 405.

I was at a Soundgarden concert that night. It was held in an armory and it was so hot that dry ice was carted in. Frontman Chris Cornell cracked jokes between songs all night, and when he said he'd heard that OJ was being driven down a highway while holding a gun to his head, everybody laughed. When I got home, I was so sweaty I prepared to take a shower and turned on the TV just to keep me company...

rocknation

Now watching mostly BBC International/C-span/local news. Can't stand to see/hear any more about this admin from Fox/MSNBC/CNN, and these outlets of spin make me sick. Anyway, I've come to prefer reading the news from around the country on-line from a variety of sources and feel just as informed about current events. I'm not interested in sports figures who can't control themselves, entertainers outdoing each other for the spotlight with ever increasingly more outrageous behaviors - the leaders(?) of my nation give me plenty of this to fill my plate. I'M DIETING by reducing consumption.

propaganda disguised as news.

tired of the media whore lies and stupidity

I am awfully tired of hearing nothing but a bunch of biased new. I watch Free Speech TV when it is on but it isn't exactly up-to-the-minute news but at least it has the proper perspective on what is really going on in what has become a very sick country.

I especially dislike FOX news. They tend to piss me off every time I happen to flash by their channel. CNN isn't a whole lot better. I prefer to watch the BBC news that is on every evening if I remember.

Sad isn't it - having to depend on another country's news to find out the reality in the world!

:dem:

Charlie Sykes, says that people are just sick and tired of the negative left liberal media slant on the news.

The people want uplifting posative news, the kind that only the conservative media can give us. The kind of news that only local tv can give.

Me thinks, Americans don't like looking at the reality of what our country has become under GW and his Pals. The reality of our situtation in Iraq.

News these days is negative and depressing, it's called reality to all you neo-conservative whores freeping out in anger in DU land.

Wake up, your conservative ideology has been hijacked by a bunch of filthy rich elitest blue-bloods, whom do not care about ethics, morals, or anything else but their own intrests.

This is the reality of the republican party and your ideology.

people are barbequing and spending time outside.. It stays light very late and folks are probably just sick of all the Laci/Kobe stuff too .........

...in a nation of approx. 280 million people, if only 250,000-500,000 are watching daily, that's such a small small percentage of the whole. Let's say even in the BEST case scenario (during the 'thick of the war' *cough*):

CNN 2.5 million
MSNBC 1.3 million
FOX 3.2 million
-----
7.0 million

That's only something like 4% of the total population. That STILL leaves 96% who AREN'T watching. Even if you figure that ABCNBCCBS picks up a similar audience, that would be 14 million at 8% of the population.

During 'regular' viewing their getting 250,000 - 500,000 daily. so let's say 500,000 x 6 major stations for 3 million people daily. That's just a little over 1% of the population watching.

So what I'm confused about is how can these stations claim to (or why do we THINK that)they have such power and influence if only a very tiny minority of the population is watching/listening to them.

Perhaps my math is wrong or ???? Am I missing something?

their car radios as the commute to work.. Is it any wonder why the public is getting dumb and dumber??

We all know who dominates the radio airwaves, now don't we :eyes:..??

because they're all getting their information from the internet. During GW1, I had CNN on all the time. Since 9-11, the only show I watch on a regular basis is the Daily Show.

The internet is a news junkie's finest heroin. Even though the majority of people on the planet prefer to live in ingorant bliss, there are plenty of us who are more informed than ever.

Before the internet, I read my local rag and the NY Times if I was lucky. For real news, I went to NPR and PBS. However, now because of the internet millions of people now have instantaneous access to millions of documents and newpaper reports with just a few key strokes. As for myself, I read 20 to 30 different sources of news a day and participate in this incredible forum.

Don't let Rove and Co. fool you. Just like the myth that Bu$h is popular, it is a myth that the American people don't know what's going on and that they don't care. You don't get millions of people taking to the streets in the middle of January, if they don't care.

To what REAL "news" has the American public been subjected? Where's my gefickten barf bag? Bunker busters, POWs and poppies from Afghanistan, wholesale canrnage in Iraq. Skewed figures of their own dead, simply accepted as "fact." Bread and circuses in CA as the democratic process is "drowned in a bathtub." Oy vey... :wtf:

I'm fascinated at the irony that this story came out the same day this other one did, about how the Iraqis are not watching the American propaganda channel.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=60249

When the news could validate your own holier-than-thou opinions, make you proud to be a better-than-the-rest American, promote "true patriotism" and give you a sense of brute conquest, it was easy to tune in.

Now that we know that people are needlessly dying because Americans were taken advantage of by their beloved leaders, and that the US looks like a bully with no credibility to the rest of the planet, and that it's harder and harder to pretend you actually believe the spin that says everything is gonna be A-OK back here in the US economy...maybe it's easier just to watch Seinfeld.

What's hard to understand about denial being the easiest (not the noblest) way of dealing with guilt?

Do people really like to be spoonfed? CBS is the only one I'll watch a lot. Rarely, I'll watch CNN.

I've given up Cable "News", even CNN (a.k.a the Conservative News Channel). Hell with MSGOP and FUX!!!
Internet sites: Guardian, BBC, The Independent, Bartcop, Buzzflash, Bushwatch, Le Monde
Then there is The Nation and the American Prospect!

I get most of my news from the Internet, though I ocasionally watch BBC World.

And most Americans don't even know it.

It has nothing to do with burnout. We are in an uneccesary war based on a lie, the economy is in the tank as are the markets, corporate crime goes completely unpunished,environemtal laws are being trashed, the bill of rights are being shredded and on and on...

What news is reported..?
Lacy Peterson, Koby Bryant, Chandra Levy. Seems every time something negative happens, there is a "Nothing" story that will go on for months.ANYTHING but the truth.

I love it how CBS and the other corporate owned media conglomerate newstations are refered to as sources for "serious news." :)

Sel