TV by the Numbers - Latest Comments in Cable News Ratings for Friday, May 2

Re: Cable News Ratings for Friday, May 2

Daniel C. — Tue, 06 May 2008 01:42:41 -0000

http://money.cnn.com/2008/0... says:

"The network has a lock on the wealthiest audience in television. The typical CNBC viewer has a net worth of $2.7 million, with an average income of $156,000, according to Monroe Mendelsohn Research. Measuring only viewers watching from home, Nielsen puts the CNBC viewer's income at $73,000, compared with an average cable viewer's income of $48,000."

Yowza

Re: Cable News Ratings for Friday, May 2

Bill Gorman — Mon, 05 May 2008 21:26:38 -0000

Daniel, We have no Fox Business numbers as yet, and none have been generally reported in public to my knowledge. Once they are generally available, I am confident we will get them.

Good point on the CNBC numbers as well. Although we have no data, anecdotally CNBC looks to have a very good income demo for its viewers.

Re: Cable News Ratings for Friday, May 2

Polly — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:34:24 -0000

I see the order now. So yes I mean CNBC, sorry I didn't pick it up sooner. (long day).

I wonder how Glenn Beck and Hardball get such a high demo with such low total numbers. I bet some broadcast network shows would kill for those percentages.

Re: Cable News Ratings for Friday, May 2

Polly — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:27:36 -0000

Bill - I guess I mean CNBC since I'm not sure what their night time line up consists of. Do advertisers really pay that much to reach an audience of less than 200,000? Even if they cost little to produce you would think that they would be interested in having more viewers. (I'm just surprised at how low some of these numbers are.)

Re: Cable News Ratings for Friday, May 2

dave — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:50:40 -0000

How come CNN doesn't have a personality driven show at 8? Its much more competitive w/fox when it does air a personality driven show.

Re: Cable News Ratings for Friday, May 2

Daniel C. — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:36:05 -0000

Bill

I agree with what you say with the additional thought that demos are even more specific when it comes to CNBC due to its content. A majority of the viewers have high incomes and advertisers will no doubt pay more to reach this very specific audience.

I'm not sure Friday is the best measurement for CNBC as well since the market is closed for the weekend when the prime time shows run. I would think it might perform better earlier in the week.

Now as a hypothesis to the other news networks. I would suggest that "conservative" viewers would be highly likely to watch FNC with more "liberal" viewers might be split between CNN and MSNBC. No proof to that, just a thought.

Do you have Fox Business Channel numbers? Are there any?

Re: Cable News Ratings for Friday, May 2

Bill Gorman — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:24:39 -0000

Polly, by "some of these shows" I'm guessing you mean the CNBC primetime line up.

My guess is twofold. (1) CNBC sees primetime as somewhat irrelevant and is primarily concentrated on the trading day 9:30-4 Eastern and it's fringes, (2) Those CNBC prime-time shows cost effectively nothing to produce.

Re: Cable News Ratings for Friday, May 2

Polly — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:01:15 -0000

Thanks for all the numbers. I always thought that FOXNews might be exaggerating a little when they said they dominate cable news. Guess not. It's not even close except for the 9 and 10 PM slots. How do some of these shows even stay on the air?