buggs
07-28-2004, 05:27 PM
Bare-Bones DNC Coverage Draws Lower Ratings
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Fewer Americans are tuning into the Democratic National Convention than did four years ago as the major broadcast networks treat the event as hardly worth watching, according to ratings issued on Wednesday.
But gavel-to-gavel coverage offered by CNN, the Fox News Channel and MSNBC is drawing bigger audiences than in 2000, a sign that broadcasters are losing politically minded viewers to the cable news outlets.
Critics say that's no surprise given that ABC, CBS and NBC are limiting coverage of the Democratic and Republican conventions to just three hours a night for three nights -- and skipping one evening of the event altogether.
At the same time, the journalists themselves continually convey the message that conventions have evolved into little more than political advertisements and that viewers are better off watching "Fear Factor," "Big Brother" or summer reruns.
"You have to take a speed-yawning course to get through some of this stuff," CBS News anchor Dan Rather told the Dallas Morning News. "If we were on for three hours a night, in a lot of places a test pattern would get better ratings."
In a journal entry posted on the CBSNews.com Web site, Rather further lamented, "This convention really is duller than those ... held four years ago. Inside the (convention) hall, it's scripted down to the nanosecond."
The bare-bones one-hour treatment of the Democratic convention's first night by ABC, NBC and CBS certainly generated little enthusiasm among viewers.
During that hour on Monday, the Big Three broadcasters and three cable news outlets -- CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC -- drew an average combined audience of 18.5 million viewers, down nearly 2 million from the total for the first night of the event four years ago, according to Nielsen Media Research.
For the broadcast networks alone, the decline was even sharper, down from 17.6 million viewers in 2000 to 13.4 million on Monday night.
But the cable news channels saw their audiences nearly double, from 2.7 million viewers combined four years ago to 5 million this year, Nielsen said. Likewise, PBS ratings for its gavel-to-gavel converge was up 9 percent from 2000.
Critics argue that by cutting back on coverage and repeatedly telling viewers there is little worth seeing, the networks create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"The message the networks are sending ... is that not only are the conventions unimportant but that the upcoming elections don't merit the nation's full attention," said Timothy Karr, head of the media reform group MediaChannel.org. "The networks are generating that lack of interest by increasingly turning away from coverage of the political process."
Karr also disputed the notion that there is little real news value at the conventions.
"It's true that as the parties present them, they are highly scripted infomercials. But any good journalist can go to an event like that and find an interesting story. And there are important stories that are coming out of the convention."
He cited the Tuesday night keynote speech by Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama, the son of an immigrant from Kenya, who is poised to become the only black member of the U.S. Senate. All three broadcast networks skipped the convention completely on Tuesday, so Obama's emergence on the national political stage was largely overlooked.
"Many consider that one of the more important political events of the season, and yet the networks weren't there to portray it," Karr said.
The politicians, too, obviously feel they deserve more air time. As the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (news - web sites) himself put it: "It's a shame they don't cover these things more. ... The talking heads keep talking and you can't hear anything."
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Fewer Americans are tuning into the Democratic National Convention than did four years ago as the major broadcast networks treat the event as hardly worth watching, according to ratings issued on Wednesday.
But gavel-to-gavel coverage offered by CNN, the Fox News Channel and MSNBC is drawing bigger audiences than in 2000, a sign that broadcasters are losing politically minded viewers to the cable news outlets.
Critics say that's no surprise given that ABC, CBS and NBC are limiting coverage of the Democratic and Republican conventions to just three hours a night for three nights -- and skipping one evening of the event altogether.
At the same time, the journalists themselves continually convey the message that conventions have evolved into little more than political advertisements and that viewers are better off watching "Fear Factor," "Big Brother" or summer reruns.
"You have to take a speed-yawning course to get through some of this stuff," CBS News anchor Dan Rather told the Dallas Morning News. "If we were on for three hours a night, in a lot of places a test pattern would get better ratings."
In a journal entry posted on the CBSNews.com Web site, Rather further lamented, "This convention really is duller than those ... held four years ago. Inside the (convention) hall, it's scripted down to the nanosecond."
The bare-bones one-hour treatment of the Democratic convention's first night by ABC, NBC and CBS certainly generated little enthusiasm among viewers.
During that hour on Monday, the Big Three broadcasters and three cable news outlets -- CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC -- drew an average combined audience of 18.5 million viewers, down nearly 2 million from the total for the first night of the event four years ago, according to Nielsen Media Research.
For the broadcast networks alone, the decline was even sharper, down from 17.6 million viewers in 2000 to 13.4 million on Monday night.
But the cable news channels saw their audiences nearly double, from 2.7 million viewers combined four years ago to 5 million this year, Nielsen said. Likewise, PBS ratings for its gavel-to-gavel converge was up 9 percent from 2000.
Critics argue that by cutting back on coverage and repeatedly telling viewers there is little worth seeing, the networks create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"The message the networks are sending ... is that not only are the conventions unimportant but that the upcoming elections don't merit the nation's full attention," said Timothy Karr, head of the media reform group MediaChannel.org. "The networks are generating that lack of interest by increasingly turning away from coverage of the political process."
Karr also disputed the notion that there is little real news value at the conventions.
"It's true that as the parties present them, they are highly scripted infomercials. But any good journalist can go to an event like that and find an interesting story. And there are important stories that are coming out of the convention."
He cited the Tuesday night keynote speech by Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama, the son of an immigrant from Kenya, who is poised to become the only black member of the U.S. Senate. All three broadcast networks skipped the convention completely on Tuesday, so Obama's emergence on the national political stage was largely overlooked.
"Many consider that one of the more important political events of the season, and yet the networks weren't there to portray it," Karr said.
The politicians, too, obviously feel they deserve more air time. As the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (news - web sites) himself put it: "It's a shame they don't cover these things more. ... The talking heads keep talking and you can't hear anything."