Cable TV news icon CNN has a vision problem.
Specifically, fewer people than ever watch CNN. The numbers tell the story.
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While Fox News averaged 2.9 million viewers in March and MSNBC averaged 1.14 million eyeballs, CNN lagged significantly with only 473,000 viewers, on average, tuning in to CNN for news coverage in March.
For some perspective, HGTV drew 472,000 viewers and the History Channel averaged 366,000 viewers in March.
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CNN's Viewership Is Lagging Behind Competitors
So what’s the problem? One big issue is the lack of urgent news.
While the Russia-Ukraine conflict, a U.S. presidential election, and rampant inflation held consumer's news media attention in 2022, 2023 is another story. This year, the election receded in the rear-view mirror while news consumers grew tired of the Ukraine war and well-worn – but still real – economic problems on the home front.
“CNN is fighting against the toughest foe they can fight,” said Rick Kaplan, a former CNN president, in comments to the Associated Press. “They’re fighting against short attention spans. They’re fighting against the fact that we’re such a divided people, so angry at each other, that if you don’t reflect that anger, the people don’t have time for you.”
That’s a big problem for CNN right now.
Low viewership “eats away at the fabric of the network, if you’re doing great shows and nobody is watching,” Kaplan added.
Meanwhile, new CNN news chief Chris Licht, a former producer at CBS, needs to buy time for his fledgling news strategy to take flight. That hasn’t happened, as changes at “CNN This Morning” haven’t borne fruit and Licht’s revamping of the network’s afternoon and evening shows will take months to roll out.
It's an uphill climb for Licht, who'll need to expand his newsroom reconstruction, as viewers head for the exits. And that’s going to take time Licht doesn’t have right now.
“I think we have to restore trust - it’s that simple," Licht told The Los Angeles Times recently. “You can talk to a lot of different people as to why that has eroded, but as opposed to looking back I will say one of our missions is to restore our reputation as the most trusted name in news.”
“We certainly have research that shows that [trust] has eroded,” he said.
