This was supposed to be the year that TV news came roaring back after a long run of viewer losses, but this election cycle is instead beginning to look like a disappointment.
About 3.7 million people on average watched Fox’s Fox News, Comcast’s MSNBC and Warner Bros’ Discovery. CNN in prime time in the TV season that began in September, down 7% from a year earlier. Four years ago, 6.5 million tuned in nightly to get the latest on the pandemic and watch the unfolding presidential race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
A number of factors have converged to make this election year more challenging for news outlets. Trump sat out the Republican debates, and viewer interest in those broadcasts withered. Both Trump and Biden are so far ahead of rivals their nominations look like foregone conclusions — not a recipe for gripping TV and polls show most Americans don’t particularly want either candidate.
Other trends, such as viewers shifting from traditional TV to streaming, have crimped ratings, notes Andrew Tyndall, who publishes a newsletter on the industry.
“Will there be a reversal now that Trump is once again at the center of the universe?” he asked. “Secular trends like cord-cutting argue against that.”
About 6 million people watched the New Hampshire primary on the big three cable news networks on Jan. 23, down from 8.7 million in 2020 and 8.65 million in 2016. This year’s Iowa caucuses delivered 4.7 million viewers, less than half of the 2016 audience, although they competed this year with an NFL playoff game and the Emmy Awards. It didn’t help that networks called the race for Trump 30 minutes into their special coverage.
Last week ABC News canceled plans for a Republican debate in New Hampshire after failing to get even two candidates to participate.
There are other factors at work. The big three cable networks have each lost stars, with Tucker Carlson and Chris Cuomo getting fired from Fox and CNN, respectively. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow gave up her regular nightly slot, although she still hosts on Mondays and for major events.
Upstarts Expand
Upstarts, like Newsmax, a conservative channel, and NewsNation, a nonpartisan one that’s part of Nexstar Media Group Inc., have been expanding their audiences, although from a much smaller base. Cuomo now works for NewsNation, averaging 151,000 viewers nightly in the fourth quarter, a 14% increase in that time slot.
TV industry insiders note that traditional ways of measuring viewers don’t capture all of the audience for news, with outlets like CNN and NBC News streaming much of their programming online. NBC News Now, for example, is available on more then 20 online platforms, such as the Roku Channel and the Amazon Fire News app.
The lower ratings won’t necessarily mean a bust for TV advertising. Candidates are expected to spend a record sum of just under $12 billion on ads this year, according to Assembly, a media advisory firm. Most of that will go to local TV stations and for races in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona.
The risk for the TV news business is that viewers will tire even more for a presidential contest that Trump began in 2022 and the two leading candidates seem to have locked up, according to Tyler Goldberg, director of political strategy at Assembly.
“You wonder if that fatigue will set in by September, which is when you ramp up for political spending,” he said. “This is a very unique year.”