All Cable News Channels See Decline in Viewership

March 14, 2011 10:20 am |Posted In: TV | Written by: Dan Evon +

More Info: , cable news, fox news, ratings, viewership

It wasn’t a good year for cable news. A new report shows that CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, all lost a good chunk of their audience this year.

According to the report, it’s the first time in 12 years that all cable news channels have seen a decline in viewership. The report was made by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, and found that cable news lost a combined total of 13.7% of its audience.

CNN lost the biggest share of its audience. The PEW is reporting that CNN dropped more than 30% in 2010 to 564,000 viewers. Fox also lost a good chunk of its audience, reportedly losing 11%. CNN saw the smallest decline, dropping 5% of its audience.

Amy S. Mitchell, Deputy Director for the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, said:

“What [the audience erosion] suggests is that we may have reached a peak in cable news viewership. It’s not that people are not watching cable, they’re just not turning to news as much. For the last several years, the personality programming was continuing to draw more and more audience and the question is whether that is leveling off as well. There just may be some limitation to the population that’s going to come to those personality driven shows day in and day out.”

The PEW reports that the main reason for the decline in cable news ratings is the growing popularity of online news channels.

[Source: Hollywood Reporter]

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