See article below -- More about the precipitous decline of CNN and also of other MSM news services. Wish there was more in the article about the incredible shrinking "Big 3" TV networks, but the picture is clear. The MSM is the Lemming Media. It simply cannot help itself from committing suicide. There is no more evening news to watch on the networks, especially not CBS and ABC, but NBC isn't much better. Katie Couric, who is certainly likable, is also a news lightweight and I don't see how she ever will become anything else. As for Diane Sawyer, is her elevation to the anchor's chair supposed to be some kind of joke ? Its her manner of presentation, goddamned every story is hearts and flowers stuff, as she reports it, as if the only proper response to hard news is to cry about it. Don't remember her name ( lucky for her ) but the sob-sister woman anchor at NBC on weekends is even worse. This kind of nonsense isn't news, it is a women's romance novel presented in news format, essentially worthless drivel, in other words. There actually are talented news women. The best, by far, is Cokie Roberts, smart as hell, and yet just enough charm that you know, for sure, she is a well adjusted actual woman. Tough as nails but able to express emotion when she should. Where is her TV news show ? As for CNN in particular, the article spells out the details, or some of them. Basically. thinking about today's news market, almost everything is a horrible mismatch. John King, for example, has real strength as a news analyst, but as a pundit, he is out of his depth and seems to think that being poetic is the secret of success ( hint, it is not ). As for Ms Croley, someone who does try hard and is competent, regardless, if you simply MUST have a woman anchor with zero or negative sex appeal, well, she's your lady. Maybe she'd make a really good office manager, but as an on-screen TV personality, uhhhh, do ratings matter or not ? Also no raving beauty is Greta, but she has one thing going for her, a winning personality. Why Rachel Maddow now outperforms Larry King is no surprise. As bad as Maddow is, which is horrible, shrill, bigoted, mean-spirited, at least she offers a little substance by way of thinking ability. Stress is on the word "little," since I regard her as an inferior thinker, but at least it is something. LK, meanwhile, offers vapors, mere whiffs of thought, banalities and superficialities galore. And the numbers tell this story much better than these written remarks . He is in the tank and yet CNN keeps him on. Not that Fox does everything right. It also is guilty of some major screw ups. Why doesn't Monica Crowley have her own show ? Why does Hannity have his own show ? I mean, as good as he is at identifying news that others overlook, at which he has real talent, is how bad ( miserable, really ) he is at doing something with these stories. On that subject the man has almost no talent at all. And why Fox hangs on the Mr Colmes, a rather insipid party hack, mystifies me entirely. But, adding it all up, the results speak for themselves. In a cable TV world where the other news services never merit more than a grade of D+ over at Fox the grade is about B- My humble opinion, anyway Billy ===================================================== American Thinker blog March 30, 2010 Liberal media death spiral intensifies Thomas Lifson CNN, the liberal cable news network which _reported_ (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2010/03/27/cnn-lowballs-nevada-tea-party-event-hundreds-peo ple-least-dozens-people-p) "at least dozens" of people attended the _Tea Party Express_ (http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/liberal_media_death_spiral_int.html#) rally in Searchlight, NV last week, may soon be measuring its audience in similar quantities. Bill Carter of the New York Times _reports_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/media/30cnn.html) :
CNN continued what has become a precipitous decline in ratings for its prime-time programs in the first quarter of 2010, with its main hosts losing almost half their viewers in a year. The problems in prime time, the most lucrative part of the broadcast day, are catastrophic in scope: Mr. [Larry] King's audience dropped 43 percent for the quarter and 52 percent in March. He dropped to 771,000 viewers for the quarter from 1.34 million in 2009. More alarming perhaps, Mr. King, whose show has been regularly eclipsed by _Rachel Maddow_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/rachel_maddow/index.html?inline=nyt-per) 's on MSNBC (and is almost quadrupled by _Sean Hannity_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/sean_hannity/index.html?inline=nyt-per) 's show on Fox), is now threatened by a new host, Joy Behar on HLN (formerly Headline News.) [....] Mr. [Anderson] Cooper has long been regarded as the strongest host at CNN, but his show has suffered badly as well. For the quarter, Mr. Cooper dropped 42 percent in viewers and 46 percent among the 25-to-54-year-old audience that the news channels use for their sales to advertisers. Larry King's brand of pablum (he never bothers to read an author's book, and specializes in softball questions) is out of step with the times, as an aroused citizenry confronts a president downsizing America's standing in the world and their own economic prospects. Anderson Cooper, the openly homosexual Vanderbilt heir, is now damaged goods, having applied the label "teabaggers" (homosexual slang for a graphic sexual act) to the Tea Partiers. He should have lost his job for that exercise in smutty sarcasm, but instead continues to destroy both his own and his employer's standing. Meanwhile, _Fox News Channel_ (http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/liberal_media_death_spiral_int.html#) , the only major news source willing to ask tough questions to President Obama and the Democrats, continues to soar in the ratings: At the same time, _Fox News_ (http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/liberal_media_death_spiral_int.html#) , which had its biggest year in 2009, continues to add viewers. _Greta Van Susteren_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/v/greta_van_susteren/index.html?inline=nyt-pe r) 's show was up 25 percent from a year earlier. _Bill O'Reilly_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/bill_oreilly/index.html ?inline=nyt-per) , whose show commands the biggest audience in prime time with 3.65 million viewers, was up 28 percent, and _Glenn Beck_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/glenn_beck/index.html?inlin e=nyt-per) was up 50 percent from a year earlier. There are ironies aplenty in this report appearing in the New York Times, which remains even more stubbornly wedded to pushing the liberal party line on a nation now more suspicious of both the media and the liberal political establishment. Not only does Fox News Channel's stunning success offer a clue to the clueless publisher Pinch Sulzberger about how to preserve his patrimony by changing its political orientation, but FNC's lush profits (reportedly well into the hundreds of millions of dollars a year) are helping _finance_ (http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/liberal_media_death_spiral_int.html#) the expansion of the Wall Street Journal into serious competition with the NYT as a general interest national daily. Rupert Murdoch has openly spoken of his intent to go after the luxury goods advertisers which provide a large share to the Times' advertising revenue, while attracting subscribers with enhanced general interest content and special price offers to both advertisers and readers. _The New York Times_ (http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/liberal_media_death_spiral_int.html#) and CNN are both circling the drain, looking at each other across the vortex swirling both of them toward unprofitability and ultimate insolvency.
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