CNN LOSES IN IOWA

CNN, which ordinarily draws big ratings for live coverage of special events, saw its audience plunge Tuesday night for its coverage of the Iowa caucuses. According to Nielsen Research, total viewers dropped to 1.3 million — 41 percent below the 2.2 million viewers who tuned in a year ago. As it did last year, Fox [...]

LET THE TV PRIMARY COVERAGE BEGIN

To the relief of everyone connected with TV coverage of Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses, the polls turned out to be right on the mark. Political pollsters, who have sometimes proved to be embarrassingly off-target in recent elections, had predicted a very tight race between Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. No one had realized how [...]

BACHMANN ACCUSES CBS NEWS OF BIAS

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann’s campaign on Sunday charged that an email it accidentally received from CBS News political analyst John Dickerson proves that the network’s coverage of her campaign is being manipulated by “the liberal mainstream media elites.” Responding to an email about including Bachmann on a CBS web telecast following Saturday’s broadcast debate, [...]

REPORT: HOWARD STERN TO JOIN AMERICA’S GOT TALENT

Seeming to be courting controversy, the producers of America’s Got Talent are in “serious negotiations” to replace Piers Morgan with Howard Stern as a judge on the talent contest, the Wall Street Journal reported today (Friday), citing people close to the situation. Morgan announced earlier this week that he was quitting AGT in order to [...]

MORGAN LEAVING AMERICA’S GOT TALENT TO FOCUS ON CNN

NBC’s hit summer talent show America’s Got Talent probably draws more viewers in one night than Piers Morgan’s interview show on CNN draws in a month, but Morgan said Wednesday that he can’t continue working on both shows and has therefore opted to remain on CNN. On Piers Morgan Tonight, he announced, “I am going [...]

CNN WRESTLES WITH SHOWING JACKSON AUTOPSY PHOTO

A graphic autopsy photograph of the nude body of Michael Jackson that was introduced as evidence at the Conrad Murray trial on Tuesday was not initially displayed on CNN. The cable news network’s decision not to show the photo was praised by celebrity criminal attorney Mark Geragos, who had acted as Jackson’s attorney at the [...]

AILES COULD JUMP FOX NEWS’S SHIP

Fox News chief Roger Ailes maintains that he has not made a decision yet about whether he will remain with the cable network after his contract expires in less than two years. In an interview with the Associated Press, he also left open the possibility of entertaining offers from competitors. “The bad news is, I [...]

RATINGS RISE AT CNN

CNN’s key moves in recent months — in particular, the decision to move Anderson Cooper into the 8:00 p.m. slot and replace Larry King with Piers Morgan at 9:00 pm. — appear to be paying off with significantly higher ratings, according to an examination of Nielsen ratings by the New York Times. Among adults 25-54, [...]

CNN ENTERS TABLET FIELD BY BUYING ZITE

CNN has paid a reported $20-25 million to acquire the iPad application Zite, which the developer describes as a “personalized magazine” that tracks a reader’s interests and collects news articles pertaining to them into an elegant layout for the Apple tablet. Such iPad apps have aggravated some content providers, who have charged the developers, including [...]

HURRICANE HYPE?

Monday-morning quarterbacks were accusing the broadcast networks and the cable news channels (and The Weather Channel) of overplaying the dangers of Hurricane Irene in order to boost ratings and ad sales. In an interview with the Associated Press, Lise King, a fellow at Harvard University, complained that the coverage became more of an entertainment than [...]

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