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Sunday, May 31, 2009

CNN Viewership Dropping Quickly

On day one, CNN

ruled cable news.

But while viewers may flock to the network for election day or the Inauguration, day 130 is a different story.

CNN, which just took home a Peabody Award for its 2008 election coverage, and dominated cable-news ratings on days when politics took center stage, is having trouble getting those viewers back on other nights.

Since Obama took office, CNN’s prime-time audience has dropped sharply, raising doubts about whether the network’s middle-of-the-road strategy can be effective against more opinionated programming on Fox News and MSNBC.

CNN President Jon Klein is quick to brush aside concerns about specific ratings metrics, and chatter online about the network’s prime-time decline.

Klein, who last year trumpeted CNN’s quarterly win over Fox News in prime-time viewers in the 25-54 demographic preferred by advertisers, now maintains that the nightly block is just a fraction of the daily schedule, and that his network remains committed first and foremost to high-quality journalism. - Politico Story

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