7-WEEK LOSING STREAK: CNN Ratings Still Behind MSNBC
One can only imagine what CNN president Jeff Zucker must be feeling.
What a fall from grace. The man is taking CNN over the cliff.
According to his bio on CNN,
Jeff Zucker has been the president of CNN since 2013. He oversees all of CNN’s businesses, including the CNN US television network, CNN International, HLN, all of CNN’s digital properties, and Great Big Story.
Zucker has had one of the most storied careers in media. He took over the Today show at the age of 26 and re-invented the historic morning news program, went on to a 25-year career at NBC Universal that saw him become the company’s CEO, greenlit such shows as The Apprentice with Donald Trump, The Voice and Friday Night Lights as NBC’s Entertainment President, co-founded the online streaming service Hulu, and is currently leading a dramatic turnaround at CNN.
I actually met Jeff Zucker in Dallas.
After practically dragging out of him that he ran NBC, I later asked him to snap a photo of me with world-renown pianist Van Cliburn. Van Cliburn dined at The Mansion on Turtle Creek often, and happened to be there that night. I doubt Zucker would remember the encounter, except for the hot sales rep I met there to fire. I remember the incident well.
Those were the salad days for Zucker. He was doing amazing things, and then he took the CNN gig. Well, that wasn’t so bad, as Zucker was prepared for the job. He just wasn’t prepared for Donald Trump.
According to an interview with POLITICO, Zucker said of insults hurled at the CNN staff for their biased, anti-Trump news:
“They wear those insults as a badge of honor, because it means they are doing their jobs,” Zucker said, referring to the network’s reporters and employees. “I would say that morale is incredibly high … They are not being intimidated, they are not backing down, they know they have my full support and it is a very exciting time, frankly, to be a journalist at CNN.”
Pretty cocky for a guy coming off multiple bruisings by FOX. But it was about to get worse.
Nevertheless, according to Breitbart went on to say the following:
The CNN chief did say he was “concerned” at first that the president’s attacks coming “on a daily basis” might hurt the network. But he claimed that there hadn’t been any harm done. He pointed to a recent study to make his case.
“There has been no diminution whatsoever,” Zucker claimed the study showed. “The CNN brand is as strong as it has ever been. Incredibly trusted. And we have seen no impact whatsoever in all those attacks on the CNN brand.”
“The demand for CNN is incredibly high,” Zucker insisted. “These are very good times for us, and the money is following,” he said, adding that the network is looking to make one billion in profits this year.
At the same event, Turner President David Levy chimed in that the network’s advertising is still strong. “CNN last year had its best year ever in terms of advertising,” he said.
That’s CNN’s fake news, and now comes the truth.
CNN didn’t make the Top Ten networks in primetime viewers for the week of March 6, according to the latest report from Nielsen Media Research.
I have documented repeatedly that President Trump will defeat the media. News is manufacturing. When news exists in abundance, everybody feasts. When there is no news, manufacturing news becomes more difficult. Thus, the outlet who manufactures best, wins. In this case, the news manufacturing machine is Donald Trump.
Sure all presidents create news, but nobody does it better than Trump.
Even when the president blasts CNN as “fake news” in their ongoing feud, that’s news. And as President Trump proves, putting the network on blast has bad consequences…for the offending network.
In the latest Neilsen rankings, CNN ranked No. 11 in total prime time viewers, losing to No. 3 ranked MSNBC for the 7th week in a row. The top five networks in prime time were Fox News, ESPN, MSNBC, HGTV, and Discovery, respectively.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal recently, Zucker admitted that critics accusing the network of mainstream media liberal bias were accurate. He commented that this year CNN has been striving to make changes to be more fair and balanced.
“I think it was a legitimate criticism of CNN that it was a little too liberal…We have added many more middle-of-the-road conservative voices to an already strong stable of liberal voices.”
Apparently, CNN no longer boasts about their disdain for President Trump. I suspect you will see Zucker fall on the sword a few more times this year before his fate finally sinks in.
