The big media bullies are self-destructing.
Arrogant, misguided, partisan purveyors of SPINNews...
...the fools.
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NewsMax.com
America's News Page
newsmax.com
With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
For the story behind the story...
Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2002
'60 Minutes' Audience Getting as Old as Mike Wallace
CBS's long-running "60 Minutes" should be sponsored by Geritol and other products aimed at the graying population,
a new audience analysis shows.
Younger viewers, on the other hand - those in the prized 18
-49 age group - are deserting the show in droves.
According to Nielsen Media Research data, the median age of
viewers for "60 Minutes" has grown from 57 to 59, while its
18-34 and 18-49 age group ratings are lower by 13 percent and 19 percent, respectively.
And it's not just Mike Wallace and company who are losing the X-generation and boomer audience. Writes John Consoli
of Mediaweek.com in his story "The Graying of the News,"
hordes of viewers, "especially in younger demographic
categories, are drifting away, both from the network newscasts and 24-hour cable networks. Not surprisingly,
most of the new viewers still watching are in older demo
groups."
Moreover, the broadcast networks' nightly newscasts have lost viewers in all age groups this season. Their household
ratings are down by as much as 10 percent, indicating that
viewers are fed up with the slanted reporting of Dan, Peter
and Tom.
In all, Consoli reports, the Nielsen data show that there are 2.5 million fewer viewers watching the three networks'
nightly newscasts compared to the numbers last fall.
Tom Brokaw's NBC newscast has held its median age at 56
over last fall. Peter Jennings' ABC news show has jumped to
59 from 57. Dan Rather's nightly audience at CBS has aged to 61 from 59.
Among the competitors of "60 Minutes":
* ABC's "Primetime Thursday" is down 21 percent in households, with a sizable chunk of that coming from
the loss of 18-34 and 18-49 viewers, down 38 percent and 40 percent, respectively, in the ratings.
* NBC's "Dateline Tuesday" and "Dateline Friday" are down in households, 3 percent and 5 percent, respectively.
"Younger people have a tendency to pay more attention to crisis events," Brad Adgate, vice president of research for Horizon Media, told Consoli. "Many of them have returned to watching sitcoms. As for older viewers, news programming is really a safe harbor for them. There's not much else that targets them."
Among the shows big with the senior set:
* CNN's Larry King has an audience with a median age of 65, up from 62 last year. The show's household ratings are off 26 percent over last year and 8 percent over 2000.
* "NewsNight" with Aaron Brown has an audience with a median age of 62, five years older than last season.
It has lost 22 percent of its households and 33 percent of adult viewers in the 18-49 age group.
Fox News the Exception
Except for Fox News, which is up 500,000 viewers a night over last year and up 744,000 viewers over the same period in 2000, cable news shows were also big losers On prime-time cable, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN and CNN Headline News are cumulatively averaging 1.4 million fewer viewers a night this season and are drawing their audiences from among the older viewers.
* CNBC is off 50 percent from last season and 33 percent from the fall of 2000.
* MSNBC is down 50 percent from last season and 25 percent from 2000.
* CNN is down 33 percent from last year and 20 percent from 2000. Headline News has slipped 33 percent from last season but is flat compared to 2000.
* The 10 p.m. "News With Brian Williams" on CNBC has dropped a full 10 percent in households since last year and 33 percent over 2000, and the show's median age is up to 58 from 56.
The drop in viewership for the network and cable news shows is evidence that critics such as Bernard Goldberg are right: Viewers are fed up with the ultra-liberal bias displayed by the likes of Wallace, Rather, Jennings and Brokaw and their colleagues on most of the cable news shows. And now that they have an alternative in upstart Fox with its fair and balanced news coverage, they are deserting the biased newscasts in droves.
They are flocking to Fox, where Bill O'Reilly is up 6 percent in households over last season and 50 percent over 2000 and "Hannity & Colmes" is up 10 percent in households over last year and 63 percent over 2000.
The Nielsen analysis suggests as well that increasingly conservative younger audiences have wised up to the fact that the networks, instead of delivering the news, have become strident propaganda organs for the left.
They’ve simply tuned out.
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