There's been a lot of instant conventional wisdom that cable news viewing has fallen off after the election. And indeed there has been some falloff, from the political peak.
But even more than politics, the real stock and trade of cable news has been breaking news. See it now. News at the speed of live, as Shepard Smith likes to say. And so, tragic as it is, Wednesday's terrorist attacks in Mumbai reminded us all of the real value of cable news. And not just the American cablers, but also other outlets, such as BBC and up-and-coming Asian cablers, such as Star News.
But closer to home, Alex Weprin, writing for Broadcast & Cable, observed that the MSM, in its eagerness to dismiss cable, had gotten a little ahead of its reportorial supply lines:
The Washington Post had a story Friday about how cable news channels were seeing serious declines in viewers now that the election is over.
While it is no surprise that news channels would lose viewers after a very long (and extensively covered) election, the raw numbers don’t always tell the whole story.
Facts are stubborn things. And so Weprin concluded that Fox--not exactly a favorite of WaPo--was still doing the best:
In addition, Fox News was also able to stay near the top of the cable network rankings. Fox went from the number one network in primetime on all of cable election week to number three the week after. Fox was behind only ESPN and USA, which typically lie at or near the top of the rankings. By comparison, CNN fell from number two to 10, while MSNBC dropped from four to 11.
Make no mistake, to the surprise of no one the news networks saw a decline in viewers, but at the end of the day Fox News weathered the post-election storm better then the competition.
