Network TV Economics

Pinpointing the economics of network TV journalism becomes more difficult as the news operations become smaller parts of larger and more diversified conglomerates with multiple media platforms. Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that news remains a significant contributor to the bottom line.

This year, three trends stand out.

• While only one of the three nightly newscasts, ABC’s, reported increases in ad revenue in 2004, the latest year for which complete results are available, partial-year data for 2005 hinted that all three would see growth by the end of the year.
• Mornings were even better. All three morning shows saw double-digit increases in ad revenues in 2004, and partial-year data for 2005 suggest that would continue.
• In prime time, NBC’s “Dateline” (along with that network’s entire lineup) was suffering, but the various prime-time magazines at its rivals were showing robust growth, especially on CBS (along with that network’s line-up generally).

Determining the operating profitability of the network news divisions is difficult to anyone outside the corporate accounting offices. Figures are difficult to find and even more difficult to verify. For the purposes of this report, we have attempted to track a more concrete aspect of the network news — advertising revenue. As we have noted before, however, using those numbers is not without its own problems. Networks bundle advertising between programs, making it difficult to allocate figures. Even so, the figures still offer some independent data to consider.