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Aug. 24, 2018 - Tim Pool Daily Show
12:35
Why is CNN Dying? Why is Fox News Now The #1 Network?!

CNN ratings are down 24% over last year and Fox News ratings are up 12%. What did CNN do that is causing them to slowly disappear and why is Fox doing so well? Not only is Fox up but it is the #1 cable channel in prime time. While many people might cheer for an end to "fake news" I assure this is actually not a good thing. As news dies off partisan websites and outlets grow causing the American divide to get worse and worse. I can't blame people for hating CNN, they made their bed. But journalism is dying too and with it honest reporting.  Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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tim pool
Ratings have been released for cable news channels, or cable channels in general.
And it looks like CNN is not doing too well, which is interesting considering they've profited off of what's called the Trump bump.
The Trump bump, for those that aren't familiar, is this idea that constantly talking about Donald Trump in a negative way is going to generate a lot of traffic for you.
And it does.
And a lot of companies seem to have embraced this.
So it's confusing then to see CNN actually doing really, really bad.
Now a lot of people are probably cheering, saying that this is a good thing that CNN is doing bad.
A lot of people don't like them.
They call them fake news.
But I'm going to argue that it's actually a really, really bad thing.
And there's a couple examples as to why.
Fox News is doing ridiculously well.
And MSNBC is also doing ridiculously well.
And what this shows us is that the divide among Americans is getting more and more extreme.
CNN might be partisan, opposed to Trump.
But Look, they are more balanced than MSNBC and Fox News.
Granted, again, they lean left, and they hate Trump, and personally I think CNN is heavily biased, but they're a lot better than MSNBC.
So I'm not saying CNN deserves to survive, or Fox News or MSNBC shouldn't be doing well, but this is just an example that these companies are working off of the partisan divide.
And as we see Fox News and MSNBC grow, as we see more partisan news outlets start to amass power and wealth, it just means that real and honest reporting is going out the window.
Why do I think CNN is doing bad?
I think they're doing bad because...
Partisanship works, and CNN for a long time was kind of dry, and now they're chasing this narrative while still trying to be news, and it doesn't work.
They end up being a Trump derangement syndrome network where all they do is rag on Trump, and thus, it's not going to work very well.
You're not strong enough to be Fox News or MSNBC, and you're not honest enough to be a strong actual source of news.
So today, we're going to take a look at exactly what is going on with cable news ratings, and it's actually worse than that.
Because journalism itself, news itself, might actually be dead or dying.
Maybe it's... maybe it's already dead.
Our first story from the Daily Wire.
Now, I know the Daily Wire is a partisan site, but we're going to start with this and then work our way towards the actual facts, because I want to see what their argument is.
Their story is titled, You Won't Believe How Bad CNN's Ratings Have Gotten.
It starts by saying CNN spends each day bashing the living daylights out of President Trump.
Turns out hardly anyone is watching.
Even pro-wrestling gets better ratings than Wolf Blitzer.
For the week of August 13-19, CNN ranked No.
8 in primetime and No.
6 for total day viewership, according to Nielsen Media Research.
The network's 1.01 million total viewer average in primetime is negative 23% versus the same week last year, and its 686,000 total day viewer is minus 24% versus last year TV news reported.
This is amazing.
Look, it seems like CNN every year sees their ratings go down.
Now, a lot of these companies saw their ratings go up.
When Trump got elected.
But once again, we have another story of CNN, look, 24% down?
That is serious.
unidentified
That's right.
tim pool
CNN has lost a quarter of its viewership compared to the same time last year.
In primetime, CNN was crushed again by Fox News and handily beaten by MSNBC, Home and Garden Television, ESPN, History, Discovery Channel, and USA Network, which often airs world wrestling matches during primetime.
Alright, but that's not fair.
Obviously entertainment is gonna do way better than news, but I guess it's not an excuse because Fox News and MSNBC do a lot better than CNN.
In total day viewership, CNN fell again to Fox, MSNBC, HGTV, Investigation Discover, and Nickelodeon.
Even Paw Patrol beat out Wolfie.
Now obviously, upon seeing that CNN is struggling and its viewership is way down, I had to wonder if this was just some partisan slant on the ratings.
But it turns out, it's actually worse than the Daily Wire even reported.
Because it's not just that CNN is down.
CNN is down in the prime demographic.
The key demo.
Ages 25 to 54.
And Fox News is flourishing.
One of the arguments from people is, well, obviously Fox News is doing well.
Most of their viewers are old people.
And old people still watch TV.
And CNN and MSNBC and other channels are getting their views online.
But actually...
That's just not true.
From TV Newser, Basic Cable, rank week of August 13th.
They say Fox News Channel continues to dominate the basic cable landscape and finish number one in total day viewers for the week of August 13th per Nielsen Live Plus same-day data.
That's now 32 consecutive weeks Fox News Channel has finished number one across the 24-hour day.
Fox News' 1.3 million viewer average across the 24-hour day is plus 4% versus the comparable week last year.
They also finished number one across basic, cable, and total primetime viewers for the 12th straight week.
Its 2.3 million total viewer average in the day part is plus 12% versus the same week last year.
Fox News also defeated CNN and MSNBC in a 25 to 54, both in primetime, 423,000, and across the total day, 255,000.
to 54 both in prime time 423,000 and across the total day 255,000. So this is
the important point. It's not old people.
Young people.
The key demo.
Young to middle-aged are watching Fox News more than CNN and MSNBC.
And I think that's the important takeaway.
And we can take a look here.
CNN finished ahead of MSNBC in the key demo.
A25 to 54 both in primetime.
331,000 and total day 198,000.
This is actually interesting.
time, 331,000 and total day 198,000.
This is actually interesting.
MSNBC is more left than CNN.
Fox News is the right-wing channel, but CNN is left.
If CNN is beating MSNBC, it would seem that MSNBC's... Look, they go after Trump way more than CNN does, and it's not really working out for young people.
The argument is actually inverted.
It's not old people who are bumping Fox News's ratings, necessarily.
Because MSNBC is getting less viewership among the key demo than even Fox News is.
And this...
is what I find really, really interesting.
Because Fox News talks favorably about Donald Trump.
CNN and MSNBC talk negatively about Trump.
Now, if you combine CNN and MSNBC, yes, there are more people who don't like Trump watching those networks than Fox.
But Fox is... they're maintaining a very strong viewership ahead of both of these channels.
And MSNBC is much further left than CNN is.
So it would seem like...
Maybe Trump has more support than the mainstream media is putting on.
Maybe the reason there's so much negative press about Trump is because you have more channels that talk about him negatively.
But Fox News is getting way more viewership.
And take a look at this.
Fox News is getting three times the viewership of CNN.
Three million views, just about.
And CNN with one million.
Even if you combine CNN and MSNBC, Fox News still gets more viewership.
So with CNN and MSNBC going after Trump, and Fox News kind of supporting Trump much more often, then it sounds like there's just a little bit more people who support Trump across cable viewership.
Not in the key demo, but across all viewers, yeah.
So maybe this is where the argument about older people might come in.
But still, it's fair to say, when you combine them all, there's just a little bit more people who like Fox News than CNN and MSNBC.
But it's not just cable news, it's also news in general.
Because this is an ongoing story I've talked about frequently.
News is dying.
And this is not a good thing.
None of this is a good thing.
And I'll get to that, but first let me look at these sources.
This is from July 23rd, Fact Tank.
This is Pew Internet Research.
They said about a third of large U.S.
newspapers have suffered layoffs since 2017.
This is not a good thing.
I know a lot of people like to rail on the fake news, but let me explain.
Listen.
These layoffs are contributing to the fake news problems.
Something happened with the Internet.
Before the Internet, people were able to watch only a few channels, so opinions were relatively narrow, but with the Internet, opinions started to go crazy across the board, and now you have websites that people, you know, people can reach a message about very, very specific things, like a website that's just vegan news, a website that's just marijuana news, like High Times.
I mean, these magazines existed.
But the big broadcasters controlled the narrative, and so their opinions were relatively narrow.
Now that things have divided more evenly across the board, Hyper-partisanship works better.
So what ends up happening is we see a rise of the Huffington Post, Daily Beast, Vox, Breitbart, right?
There are websites that are more partisan and slanted way in favor of a political group.
And because of this, because they're making money, mainstream news outlets are losing.
They're losing revenue and they can't maintain.
Listen.
I assure you, and I've seen this, if I make a video that's rational, calm, and fair, yeah, I might get some views.
And there are a lot of people who watch me because they respect that I try to balance out my coverage.
But I tell you what.
You can look at any of these bigger YouTubers.
You can look at Steven Crowder.
You can look at Paul Joseph Watson or Mark Dice.
People who have a very, very slanted message and are much more direct.
You know, I actually think Crowder's pretty good at what he does.
He's conservative.
And so he takes that approach.
Sometimes he's factually incorrect.
Sometimes I am as well.
But of course he's going to do a lot better.
Because partisanship works.
Balance works to an extent.
So what these news companies do is they chase after that.
That's why CNN has gone full-on, you know, Trump bump.
Trying to do these negative stories about Trump to maintain these ratings.
Because they're dying.
Because they're down 24% over the last year.
What they're doing is not working.
CNN, you really gotta change what you're doing, because what Fox is doing is working.
And I think Tucker Carlson is a big part of that.
I could be wrong, but Tucker is a much younger voice than a lot of these other networks have.
He's not super young, but it seems like Tucker's more in tune with the internet and these stories that are spreading around online, and it seems like CNN is stuck in their bubble, and this can only spell bad things.
These news outlets could do better, but it's clear when we look at the trends that Look, Vox is gonna make money when they say things that aren't true.
The Daily Beast.
They say things that are not true all the time.
And it works for them.
Now, I don't know if they're going to survive, because we're seeing layoffs across the board, as I've just shown you.
But the more layoffs we see, the more desperate these people become, and the more willing to compromise they become.
Real journalists are going to lose their job first.
Because a real news story that's only a few hundred words that says, today Donald Trump made a statement about South Africa, here's the information on South Africa, is going to get much less clicks than a story that claims Donald Trump is a neo-Nazi white nationalist who's signaling to neo-Nazis.
Obviously, that's going to make people freak out.
They're going to click it, and they're going to make money doing it.
We don't want to see these layoffs, but there's nothing we can do about it, because the world is changing.
And you know what that means?
It means CNN's going to continually do worse.
It means in their desperation, they're going to become more partisan.
It means the same thing for Fox.
It means the same thing for MSNBC.
And as these things work for them, Fox News is up.
Their viewership is up.
They're on their, what, 32nd consecutive week dominating primetime cable.
They're going to continue doing that.
And they're partisan.
So we're going to lose out on honest, balanced reporting.
And it sucks.
But you know what?
There are a lot of people I'm pretty sure are going to comment saying, good riddance, they're glad to see CNN go.
And you know what?
I can't say I blame people.
Because...
There will never come a time where I would compromise based on the trends of technology and media.
I started doing this because I wanted to talk about what I thought was right, what I believed in, and I'm an individual.
These news organizations are going to chase after partisan individuals who can make clicks for them, and those people probably believe what they're doing is right too, but they also don't find anything wrong with lying.
And I think there's something wrong with that.
I think a lot of these people are unfair.
I think there's something wrong with that.
And a lot of these people, these activists, are actually advocating for violence in some instances.
So you know what?
The more this happens, the worse it's going to get, and it's not a good thing.
But does it necessarily mean that CNN is going to die?
I don't know.
Comment below and let me know what you think, and we'll keep the conversation going.
I want to point out, for those that didn't realize this, I had a video up this morning at 10 a.m.
and I'm going to... I'm gonna try and do that every day.
A 10 a.m.
video and a 4 p.m.
video.
A morning show.
I'm thinking maybe the morning show will be a look at.
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