News Ratings - Question for Voro

Aaeamdar · Post by **Aaeamdar** » September 20, 2004, 4:46 pm

Was going to PM him, but thought otehrs would be interested in the answer.

I saw Voro post this in another thread:

We get lower ratings than Fox News Channel (but have more individual viewers)

.

I don't know a thing about ratings, but I always assumed they measured viewers. How do you get lower ratings but more viewers? Was there something technical witht eh use of the adjective "individual." that is - are ratings done on a "household" basis but you have some other statistic that indicates households that view CNN have more indiviuduals per house than those that watch Fox?

Thanks for your help.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » September 20, 2004, 5:32 pm

it has to do with Cable Television ratings - which are kind of fucked up.

In total about 90% of US households have cable/satellite TV.

In total 85% of US households (HH) have CNN
About 81% have Fox News Channel

the first part of any ratings disparity is that your rating is divided by your "universe". The "CNN Universe" is that 85% of HH.

so a network with a smaller universe can get a higher rating in certain events even though they have fewer individuals watching their programming.

This is not really the difference between CNN and Fox News Channel's (FNC) rating.

Ratings are a function of two things:

#1 the number of people watching
#2 the amount of time they watch.

The average CNN viewer watches CNN for a shorter period of time than the average FNC viewer watches FNC.

So while more individual humans are likely to watch CNN on a given night (our "cume" short for cumulative audience), FNC viewers are going to watch much more of FNC programming.

So long story short, CNN wishes they had FNC's "time spent viewing" and FNC wishes they had CNN's "cume".

hope that helps

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » September 20, 2004, 5:49 pm

I watch CNN out of respect for what they've done in the past as a news agency.

The big three (CBS/ABC/NBC) sucked so bad and then came along CNN which gave news reporting a fresh kick in the ass.

I'm not sure why FOX news has such high ratings. I never watch it or CBS/NBC/ABC. CNN has done a great job manipulating my mind into thinking CNN whenever I want to watch the news.

Before CNN I watched ABC and Peter Jennings though! He had that funny Canadian accent that slipped out once in awhile.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » September 20, 2004, 5:53 pm

Fox has high ratings because they do an excellent job of putting on high energy programming. The O'Reilly factor is hardly a quality news show, but it is entertaining television, and that is why it is far and away the highest rated news show.

FNC's substantial viewership growth over the last 5 years has come largely at the expense of the networks. The networks have been losing market share to cable in both entertainment and news for quite some time now, and that trend continues to increase. CNN's viewership continues to grow at a substantial rate each year, so while it would be nice to capture as many new viewers as FNC does, those viewers are not coming at CNN's expense.

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » September 20, 2004, 5:57 pm

I watch Fox sometimes... truly because I want to see what different people are saying about different things. For our local news we watch the CBS here in Little Rock, it's the best by far so we usually leave on the CBS evening news as well. My wife's parents always watched Dan Rather so we do as well. In many instances, in regards to war reporting he has done a great job. Between him and Christine Am... whatever on CNN I always felt like I got the full story... wasn't going to give Geraldo the time of day

I try to catch Bill O'Riley at least once a week though on Fox. Yea we don't agree on a lot of things but I think his show is pretty fun because he is often full of shit and knows it... but he keeps driving hard on the issue anyway. Don't watch much MSNBC or ABC or NBC etc...

However if there is any time we are looking to find something about about "whats" going on, not relating to weather, it's CNN Headline News. I like it because I can watch for 30 min and feel like I got everything.

Marb

*~*stragi*~* · Post by ***~*stragi*~*** » September 20, 2004, 6:34 pm

It's because Fox News is the Jerry Springer of news

masteen · Post by **masteen** » September 20, 2004, 6:45 pm

It's also because most local news stations suck balls. It's hard to go back to Bob and Jill with the cattle report when there's carnage only a few channels away.

Neost · Post by **Neost** » September 20, 2004, 6:51 pm

If CNN would ditch that evening guy I'd watch them a lot more. I typically stay away from Fox for a very trivial reason, I don't believe 85% of what I see.

Not that I feel THAT much more confident in any other "straight" news source.

Kguku · Post by **Kguku** » September 20, 2004, 8:20 pm

I stopped watching CNN once they hired Aaron Brown. I found him annoying in the seattle news scene, and even more annoying now.

Now I just watch The National if I want any news coverage.