Why CNN Imploded

Here’s a quick update on last week’s post, How Jeff Zucker made Trump. The Hill reports that CNN’s ratings seriously imploded last year. “Ratings fell 90 percent overall when comparing January 2021 to January 2022,” it says.

That may have a lot to do with Jeff Zucker’s “resignation.”

The article reviews Zucker’s tenure. As soon as he took charge, he threw standard news coverage out the window in favor of chasing sensantional narratives such as24/7 coverage of the missing Malaysian passenger plane. And then from 2015 on he made Donald Trump the centerpiece of CNN’s news coverage, in one way or another. Once the network had helped make Trump president, it led the way in sensationalized negative coverage. (I assume that’s true, as I don’t usually watch CNN.) But once Trump was out of office, it appears CNN couldn’t remember what else there was to talk about in the world, and ratings plummeted.

CNN has been purchased by the Discovery Channel, which in itself says something. The Discovery Channel’s largest stockholder, John Malone of Liberty Media, is a big-time Trump donor, so I don’t have a lot of hope that CNN will go back to being about news coverage.

5 thoughts on “Why CNN Imploded

  1. OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

    Not CNN!

    Possibly getting IN KKKahoots with tRUMP?!?  SAY IT AIN'T SO, CNN! Or would you prefer to be known, now, as KKKN?!?

    Enquiring minds want to know.

    Just what we need, yet another FUX, ONANism, NewsSCHMUCKS KKKonservatard TV "news" (read as propaganda) channel.

    OY!

  2. Once again, I am reminded of my dearly departed media friend who repeatedly claimed that 24/7 news was absurd.  Just not enough compelling content to get eyes and therefore ratings most of the time.  There is also the matter of competition. with media services abounding and lots of people cutting the cable.  Sports, not News, is what continues to sell cable and gets the coveted ratings.  

    The ratings are what cable news is all about, as the ad rates are dependent on the ratings from all viewers but especially the coveted demographic of young adults.  I have had a lot of this age group tell me they get their news almost exclusively over their phone. I can attest to almost never seeing that demographic reading a newspaper.  

  3. What would happen if CNN deliberately introduced a Walter Cronkite clone? I'm talking about style and demeanor. Straight reporting of news unless it's identified as an editorial. Would viewers respond or is hyper-partisan flame-throwing an essential component?

Comments are closed.