CNN: Where Have You Gone?

Source:CNN headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.

If you are a Gen-Xer like me (meaning someone who was born in the 1960s or 70s) or even older than that, CNN was the first 24 HR cable news network (no pun intended) that you were aware of. Being almost 48 now, I'm old enough to remember when CNN was literally almost 24 hours of news. 

CNN had a late sports news cast, called Sports Tonight, that sort of competed with ESPN SportsCenter, and they had Larry King Live who interviewed a lot of entertainment celebrities in the 1980s and 90, and they had Showbiz This Week, which obviously covered Hollywood and the broader entertainment industry during the 1990s. But back in the 1980s and 90s, CNN was literally the Cable News Network and it wasn't just called that. 

If you remember the 1990s and are were watching CNN back then, you remember hearing James Earl Jones narrating CNN's trademark slogan: "This is CNN". And that meant something back then. They were seen as basically the 60 Minutes, or the broadcast network nightly newscasts, of news. In some cases they were probably better than those shows, because they had more time to fill and more resources to use just covering current affairs and real news. 

Now, the CNN slogan could easily be something like: "CNN: we offend the least", because they are worried about hitting someone or something too hard, because they're worried about losing viewers, regardless of what their facts and information from their reporters is reporting about the situation or individuals that are involved in the story.  As if what they're doing now (whatever it is) is not costing them viewers.

I think part of the problem of why CNN is not really 24 hours of hard news anymore, but most of their coverage now is just a lot of panel discussions and interviews with partisan figures, is that Americans simply don't have the same level of interest in hard news coverage as they did even in the 1990s, with cable TV becoming so dominant and then the internet as well, and all the online publications, social media in the 2000s, 2010s, and today. 

Americans today simply don't have the same level of interest in hard news that Americans had in the 1960s and 70s before cable TV became a major player, when the broadcast network news divisions, and print media still dominated news coverage in America. 

Americans by-en-large today, want their news either from social media, their favorite partisan publications. And when they do want TV news, they go to their favorite partisan networks like Fox News Channel, or MSNBC. But people are now leaving MSNBC perhaps as fast as CNN today. Making FNC the only source for cable news (if you want to call FNC news) as far as a place that gets any real ratings anymore. 

So the change in how Americans get their news today and really the last 20 years, has really affected CNN in a bad way and they yet to find a way to be able to successfully adapt to that. In the early 2010s, they tried making reality TV and celebrity court trials a big part of their daily TV coverage. A lot of people still remember the George Zimmerman trial in 2013, when CNN covered it gavel-to-gavel. And that got their ratings up a bit during that trial. Which is a long way away from James E. Jones famous line, with that perfect delivery that he had which was: "This is CNN". Which meant this is where you go for real news. 

I don't think CNN knows who they are and what they're about anymore. Of course they'll say they're a a 24 hours news network dedicated to bringing Americans and their international audiences the best in cable news coverage, if not news coverage from any source. But this is no longer the CNN of Prime News, World News, Inside Politics, CNN This Morning. Or even Crossfire, Evans and Novak, The Capital Gang, shows that tried to intelligently debate American politics and current affairs. CNN now is just trying to tread water and in complete survival mode, not sure where they go from here and how they stay in the news business all together. 

From The Economic Times: 

"It has been noticed for a pretty long time now that the viewership of CNN is plummeting vigorously with every passing year. In a recent development Senator Dick Durbin was noticed to talk about the extreme low viewership of CNN and thus anxiety and worries inside the CNN still continues to grow.

According to The Washington Post, CNN has experienced a dramatic 45% drop in prime time viewership since the month of November specifically following the November 5 US Presidential election while averaging only 394,000 viewers which actually marked its worst performance in key demographics.

This current trend eventually reflects a broader decline in the television viewership as audiences shift towards streaming services and social media platforms. At the same time, MSNBC has similarly lost huge amount of viewers with its audience down pretty significantly post US Presidential election, asserted The Washington Post.

In spite of these ongoing challenges, CNN now claims to be the fourth most watched cable network overall with a digital strategy which is aimed at increasing the online subscriptions. The network also launched a paywall in the month of October at $3.99 per month but has not disclosed the subscriber numbers, noted The Washington Post.

Eminent critics within the CNN suggest that recent programming choices which include a town hall with US President- elect Donald Trump might have actually al ..

CNN has experienced a dramatic 45% drop in prime time viewership since the month of November specifically following the November 5 US Presidential election while averaging only 394,000 viewers which actually marked its worst performance in key demographics.

From The Economic Times

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