Nielsen data shows precipitous drops in news viewership | WARC | The Feed
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Nielsen data shows precipitous drops in news viewership
The Trump years were a time of high news viewership in the US, leading to a presidential term in which the febrility of the national debate kept viewers coming back – either out of horror or out of delight – but a year on from the 2020 election, news viewership is down and has stayed down across all formats.
Why it matters
The figures reported by the Columbia Journalism Review show serious declines, but also hint at the compulsive news behaviours that both the public and news organisations grew used to. News is, in short, entering a different phase in America.
Stories of decline – October 2020 vs October 2021
Cable television:
- CNN viewership down 74%
- MSNBC down 56%
- Fox News down 53%
Broadcast television (Q3 21 vs Q3 20):
- ABC World News Tonight down 10%
- NBC Nightly News down 12%
- CBS Evening News down 8%
Online traffic (From Comscore via CJR Sept 21 vs Sept 20):
- com down 6%
- Vox Media down 14%
- NYT down 12%
- Washington Post down 20%
Sourced from Columbia Journalism Review
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