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Bad News For Network And Local TV News

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Sunday March 17, 2013 @ 9:01pm PDTTags: ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, NBC News, Pew Research Center, TV News

If you care about news, then the Pew Research Center’s latest annual State Of The News Media report will make you want to cry. Providers across all platforms became “more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or to question information put into [their] hands,” Pew’s Project for Excellence In Journalism finds. The shortcomings stood out during the election when “campaign reporters were acting primarily as megaphones, rather than as investigators, of the assertions put forward by the candidates and other political partisans.”

Even in a year with an exciting presidential election the collective audience for ABC, CBS and NBC’s evening newscasts fell 2% to 22.1M “resuming the downward trajectory of nearly three decades” after an uptick in 2011. Total audience for local TV newscasts — the nation’s #1 news source – shrank last year in all key time slots except for early morning and across stations aligned with all the networks, resuming a downward trend that seemed to have ended in 2011. Viewing of the evening newscasts that aired between 5:00 and 7:00 PM at the major network affiliates fell 7% last year. One reason: young people are tuning out. About 28% of adults under 30 regularly watched local news last year, down from 42% in 2006. Local news devoted 40% of air time to sports, weather, and traffic, up from 32% in 2005. And just 20% of the stories last year ran at least a minute, down from 31% a decade ago. READ MORE »

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YouTube News Viewers Flock To Natural Disasters And Political Upheaval: Study

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Sunday July 15, 2012 @ 9:16pm PDTTags: Pew Research Center, TV News, YouTube

Last year’s tsunami in Japan, the elections in Russia, and turmoil in the Middle East were the most popular topics for news watchers on YouTube in the 15 months that ended in March, according to a new … Read More »

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TV News Broke Its Losing Streak In Action-Packed 2011: Study

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Sunday March 18, 2012 @ 9:01pm PDTTags: Big Deals TV, Pew Research Center, TV News

This is one of the first times in years that TV journalists and executives won’t need a box of Kleenex nearby when they read the Pew Research Center’s encyclopedic and authoritative annual State Of The News Media Report, which will be released today. Broadcast networks, cable news networks, and local TV stations all showed signs of improvement in 2011 as people became riveted by stories about Arab Spring, the death of Osama bin Laden, the shooting in Tucson of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Britain’s royal wedding, and the tsunami in Japan, according to Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The audience for the major networks’ newscasts increased for the first time since 2001. Cable news viewing also was up, a relief after a huge slide in 2010. And local news gained ground, ending a five-year decline. To be sure, traditional news providers across the board still haven’t figured out how to make money in digital media. And last year they “lost more ground to rivals in the technology industry,” Pew says. The audience for online news sources grew 17.2% while revenues were up 23.0%, Still, researchers say that “news is becoming a more important and pervasive part of people’s lives” — and that “could prove a saving factor for the future of journalism.” Here are some of the highlights for TV news: Read More »

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Pew: TV Falling As Political News Source

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday February 7, 2012 @ 10:41am PSTTags: Pew Research Center, Politics, TV News

Only 69% of adults turned to the tube first for election news last month, the lowest percentage in at least 20 years, according to the weekly surveys taken for the Pew Research Center’s News Interest Index. The latest figure is  down from 72% four years ago, 78% in 2004, and 86% in 2000. Broadcasters are seeing the biggest losses. Just 32% of adults cited local TV news as their primary source for election news, down from 40% four years ago. The national nightly newscasts were down to 26% from 32%. Cable news channels held relatively steady at 36%, down from 38%. As you might imagine, a lot of people now are turning to the Internet for their political news fix.  It passed newspapers to become the No. 2 source of election news, with 34% turning first to the Web vs 26% in the 2008 campaign and 13% in 2004. CNN.com ranked first for politics junkies on the Internet, followed by Yahoo News and Google News. Only 22% picked Read More »

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Study: Tablet Owners Love Using Them For News, As Long As They Don’t Have To Pay

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday October 25, 2011 @ 9:50am PDTTags: iPad, Magazines, Newspapers, Pew Research Center, TV News

This is sure to chill all of the newspaper and magazine companies that thought subscribers would return to the fold once the content became available on the sexy mobile devices. The finding comes from the most detailed study yet of the … Read More »

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Report: TV Station Newscasts Vulnerable As Viewers Turn To Smartphones For Local Info

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Sunday September 25, 2011 @ 9:01pm PDTTags: Pew Research Center, TV News

The TV station business is becoming tougher by the day, but here’s something that could make things painful: The broadcasters’ biggest cash cow, their local newscasts, could lose lots of viewers as people discover that they can find … Read More »

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Study: Tea Party Supporters Followed Debt Ceiling News Most Closely, And Acted On It

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday August 2, 2011 @ 10:03am PDTTags: Pew Research Center, Tea Party

The Pew Research Center for People and the Press offers a clue today into why the battle in Washington to raise the debt ceiling ended up with a deficit-reduction deal that would just cut spending with no increase … Read More »

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