The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

CNN: ‘Disgraced, a National Punchline’

Posted on | January 15, 2022 | 1 Comment

CNN has lost 90% of its audience since Donald Trump left the White House, a predictable consequence of Jeff Zucker’s decision to go all-in on anti-Trump programming. John Nolte at Breitbart comments:

CNN is left-wing talk radio with pictures, and CNN is failing at that because MSNBC does it a whole lot better with superior production values and appealing anchors. . . .
CNN chief Jeff Zucker sold the soul of the 40-year-old CNN brand to enjoy a few good ratings months during the Trump years. And it worked. But only for a few months. Now CNN is disgraced, a national punchline, and other than pointing and laughing, no one pays attention to it anymore.

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

It is difficult to explain, and impossible to exaggerate, just how far CNN has fallen. In October, it was noted that CNN’s Reliable Sources program with Brian Stelter attracted only 85,000 viewers ages 25-54 (the so-called “demo” on which advertising rates are based), which was lower than re-runs on other cable networks of Friends, Golden Girls and Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and even lower than the cartoons Paw Patrol and Spongebob Squarepants. In a nation of 325 million people, a demo audience of 85,000 is microscopic; Stelter is irrelevant, an asterisk in the ratings.

Rather than comparing CNN to other cable-news programs, it is more instructive to compare them to YouTubers. My favorite fireworks channel, CodyBPyrotechnics, has 338,000 subscribers and the video of Cody’s New Year’s Eve show has gotten 78,000 views — roughly twice Stelter’s audience on CNN. The video of Cody’s Fourth of July show has gotten nearly 750,000 views, which is equal to many primetime programs on CNN. Then there is the Police Activity channel, which is mostly dashcam and bodycam footage of police shootings, and has 3.2 million subscribers. Their most recent video, of a burglary suspect getting shot in Seattle after stabbing a police dog, has garnered more than 200,000 views in two days. You might say, “Well, but that’s fun stuff — fireworks and suspects getting shot by cops, everybody loves to watch that.” This is true, but what about YouTube channels that do the same thing CNN does, i.e., talk about politics? Tim Pool’s channel has 1.3 million subscribers and most of his videos get 200,000+ views. That’s one guy talking to a webcam, OK? But Tim Pool’s audience is still bigger than Brian Stelter, who has an entire network staff producing his program on a channel that’s part of every basic-cable package in the country.

CNN is a failure — useless garbage, rejected by the American people.




 

Category: CNN

Comments

One Response to “CNN: ‘Disgraced, a National Punchline’”

  1. Run for the Hills: Heee’s Back | nebraskaenergyobserver
    January 26th, 2022 @ 9:00 am

    […] at The Other McCain, it is  noted that CNN is a dead network […]