Conventions belong to cable news: CNN, Fox, MSNBC take over from broadcast networks

LAT: The conventions belong to cable news
CNN, Fox News and MSNBC take over broadcast networks' role as political prognosticators.
By Scott Collins, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 1, 2008

Things weren't supposed to work this way. Last week's Democratic convention in Denver came off as a tightly scripted affair; all the drama resided in how the thing was covered on TV.

It was the ultimate meta-event! Take, for example, the Matthews Meltdown. Discussing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech on Tuesday, MSNBC host Chris Matthews lost it after colleague Keith Olbermann seemed to mock him with a hand gesture that suggested Matthews was talking too much. Hair askew, looking as if he had spent the night on a bench in a bus station, Matthews shed TV's normal protocol and retorted: "I can do the same to you!" and defended his Hillary spiel: "That's what I thought, all right? And I said it."...

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(T)he conventions are giving the cable-news folk cause for celebration...given the ratings. A record total of 38.3 million viewers watched Obama's acceptance speech Thursday, according to Nielsen Media Research. An average of 8 million watched on CNN alone, easily besting the broadcast competition on ABC, CBS and NBC. Of course, nobody on the Republican side approaches the media star power of Obama; McCain himself takes potshots at his own speaking skills. But last week, the three news cable networks each posted average prime-time gains of more than 50% compared with the '04 convention; those gains are unlikely to fade away entirely in Minnesota.

The conventions are making it clearer than ever before that the broadcast networks have, for better or worse, permanently ceded to the cable outlets their role as the nation's political prognosticators. That was the historic role that NBC first carved out more than 50 years ago for anchors Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. As CNN/US President Jon Klein told me late Thursday: "Networks are not in the news-coverage business anymore. They put on newscasts."

If that seems a self-serving exaggeration, consider that while CNN, Fox News and MSNBC indulged in wall-to-wall coverage in Denver, the broadcast networks hewed to their recent pattern of devoting one paltry hour per night to the proceedings. The broadcast journalists were out there gamely trying but were handicapped covering a story that everyone else was swarming and where old-fashioned play-by-play seemed irrelevant....

So what news there was, outside of the speeches everyone saw and interpreted, lurked in the margins....Matthews' rant and other sideshows at MSNBC generated far more attention. Overall, the broadcasters' convention ratings stank....

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The conventions play to cable's strength at saturation coverage and instant analysis.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-channel1-2008sep01,0,2163983.story

but DeepModem Dad watched only C-Span.

While I love Keith Olbermann, a good part of the time I was watching C-Span. It's the only way to see and hear exactly what's going on down there on stage. I don't think anyone's voice is more or less important than another's. A lot of the speeches by lesser-known Democrats were quite good.

Although I may stick to the commentary when it comes to the Republican speakers...