Thread.
1/
What happened to CNN?
I worked there for 18 years.
This is what happened.
Everyone wants to know why CNN is shifting.
Let me explain why.
What Fox News gets that MSNBC and CNN don’t get…
Each quarter, the Cable Operators release their subscriber base.
2/
For seven consecutive years, the cable operators have seen subscriber declines for 84 months
It’s called in the TV biz, “Cord Cutters”
97% of the “Cord Cutters” are under the age of 50
The majority of what is left watching cable like we have known, are very very old people
3/
As demographics for TV rapidly has changed to a very old age group, the networks remaining with any traction (ESPN, News Nets, etc.) have - HAVE TO - appeal to who is sitting on their couch watching news 24/7
Again, they are very very old people relative to the US population
4/
In the ratings war, the scorecard is usually based on A18-49 demographic.
But not for News.
No one buys news networks going after A18-49. No one.
All advertisers on these nets buy them for A50+.
MSNBC went left.
Fox News went right.
CNN tried to play the middle.
5/
The problem with CNN was they built a powerhouse in the 90’s. We printed money.
Cash. Hand over fist.
Then MSNBC and Fox News came along. The race was on.
MSNBC went velvet rope.
Fox News went diner.
CNN got caught in no man’s land.
6/
But the money kept coming in.
Then, technology changed the game.
CNN.com became THE defacto news source for America for a good 10 years.
Bernard Shaw hiding under the desk when Baghdad got bombed.
Aaron Brown broadcasting for 20 hours straight during 9.11.
CNN - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos
View the latest news and breaking news today for U.S., world, weather, entertainment, politics and health at CNN.com.
http://CNN.com
7/
We loved the accolades.
We sold on it.
But what we didn’t do was take a look at what was happening.
The viewership started to splinter to MSNBC cause some folks wanted a left bent
But a lot went to Fox News
In fact between 2008 and 2016, CNN lost 60% of its 50+ audience.
8/
Fox News, saw a 70% increase in the same demo during the same period (mostly men)
Fox News gave the audience what they want, an aggrieved white man perspective
While we chased the “next shiny object”
not arguing Fox News is right. Absolutely not. They are evil to the core
9/
“Fish where the fish are.”
In 2010, the team at CNN got the Fox News Strategy for sales and that was their strategy (they got ours too and MSNBC, happens all the time)
Some of us, said “uh oh, they’re right”. The audience is no longer A18-49
others laughed and mocked it
10/
Trump came and CNN started to make a shitload of money again by being the “counter” to Fox News but it was based on perception not reality.
No one was still watching.
Why?
While rest of America is out there cutting the cord, Fox News doubled down on old people.
And won.
11/
CNN saw that CNN+ will NOT bring in new audiences.
What 65 year old is going download and subscribe to a news streaming service with a basketball star, Rex Chapman- no offense Rex and I love ya - but the 65 year old living in The Villages is not your fan.
News Networks are not here to defend democracy.
There is only one goal and one goal only.
Higher CPM’s.
CPM is the currency used in TV to reflect the value of the programming.
The higher the CPM, the higher the margin on that commercial being sold.
The most valuable programming on TV is the championship game of the NCAA March Madness Tournament.
Super Bowl gets higher ratings, but the value ratio between CPM and audience is significantly much larger for March Madness Championship game vs. Super Bowl.
You pay $4 To $5 Million for a Super Bowl ad but you get 100 Million people watching.
You pay $1 MM for a March Madness spot but only get, at most in these day, 15 Million people watching.
See the ratio premium difference?
It’s the same with Fox News vs. CNN vs. MSNBC.
The ratio for Fox News CPM’s are much higher relative to their audience they attract, which means their margins are higher which also means the “value” to who they are selling to is more profitable.
Chris Litcht was given one edict.
Raise CPM’s.
That’s it.
That’s all he has to do.
And he believes this is how.
Fin.
P.S ppl want to know what CPM stands for
Cost Per Thousand
In Latin, Thousand starts with an “M”
I’ve been in the biz for 30+ years and it makes zero sense to me why the C and the P are listed in English but the M is Latin 😂
It makes as much sense as electing Trump President
Ok, people want more.
Why did CNN remove field reporters from war zones and sub-contract coverage to local affiliates?
The market cap was saturated.
News networks, and us at CNN, saw only single digits increases once we all reached the threshold of in being in 70 Million homes
Then the game changed in 2010 with Citizen United’s
We all were killing it before the Citizen United ruling.
But that ruling opened up the flood gates exponentially.
Every 2 years. $1 Billion would pour into the networks during election cycles.
It changed how we did business.
News Networks make more money during the 3 months leading up to mid-terms than they do all year.
Imagine candy manufacturers during October leading up to Halloween.
Now multiple that by 10x.
And a Presidential Year: Fuggetaboutit. Ch-Ching!
What made PACs and campaigns spend money?
Was it the coverage in war zones?
No way.
We saw once we put people like Santorum on the air, liberal groups would pour money into our pockets.
But liberal groups took a decade to understand Citizen United.
Not the people down the street on 6th avenue.
They knew.
Combined with a black president, my god they took us all to the cleaners.
For every general market dollar Fox News made they made $2 on every political campaigns.
They doubled the revenue vs. regular advertisers.
MSNBC didn’t care.
They packaged MSNBC with NBC and then eventually their cable networks like USA and Bravo.
MSNBC was just a line item for a advertisers they had to buy
You want a spot in Sunday Night Football on NBC? You had to spend on MSNBC to get it
That’s how this works
I know for a fact, cause I was in the room, when we told talent on CNN to NOT lean in on Citizen United.
In retrospect, I stayed 5 years too long cause I’m disgusted of what happened to the company Ted built.
Ted was fucking crazy! CRAZY with a capital C.
But when the AOL Time Warner merger happened, he lost all control and the separation between Church and State was obliterated.
It was Ted that kept business and content apart from each other.
This is ‘THE’ singular reason why no one in news talks about Citizen United.
We made the decision in 2012 when $770 Million was poured into News by CPACs.
After that, we told the anchors to stop talking about it.
*don’t know why wrote CPACs (cringe), just PACs lol
Close your eyes and imagine CNN, MSNBC FOX NEWS without PAC spending
You can’t
They can’t
If they lived in a world where PACs couldn’t spend money at will they’d all be out of jobs. Simple as that
They’ll never want it gone.
I’ve seen the books.
The business would shut down
The biggest hypocritical media story of the 2020 election was the cable networks shaming the social media giants not to accept political ads leading up to the election while they ran Trump/Biden and Citizen United protected Ads up to midnight on election night.
lol.
Remember in 2020 all the price gouging stories CNN did?
We had government officials on the air demanding hearings for price gouging.
Anchors, would be aghast at the irresponsibility of people during a world wide pandemic- of the horror.
Then we went to a commercial that charged up 5x the normal rate cause it was a PAC and it was close an election. So instead of $15k for a spot at 5p, it was $75k cause it was a PAC supporting Trump or whatever.
Then we’d come back and bash price gougers.
Get Chris Licht in front of Congress and ask him to open the books and show the rates they charged during the pandemic?
Yeah, he’d run back faster to Colbert than Trump steals docs.
(Shh trade secret: Very few people in congress want it gone too)
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