Cable TV Audience

This report calculates cable ratings as median averages. Our research team believes that the median is the fairest way to try to understand the core audience for cable, given the volatility of ratings spikes during unusual news events. The cable channels themselves usually calculate their year-to-year ratings as simple averages, which are disproportionately inflated by ratings driven by major news events and exaggerate the declines in cable audiences when those spikes don’t happen (See 2005 Cable TV Audience for fuller explanation).

If one calculates the cable ratings in 2005 by a simple average, or mean, as the cable channels do, the picture is much flatter, except for CNN. The average prime time audience over all rose less than a percent (0.2%). While CNN saw a gain of one percent, Fox News grew less than that (0.2%) and MSNBC’s viewership fell by 1%.

Cable News Prime Time Audience

Average Audience, 1998 - 2005, Channels Combined

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Source: Nielsen Media Research, used under license

In daytime, using the mean, the growth was more than that of the median audience figure and a stark turnaround from 2004. Daytime viewership grew seven percent, compared with a 21% drop in 2004. According to Nielsen Media Research, the average daytime audience for 2005 grew from 1.6 million to 1.7 million.

What’s more, using the mean average, this calculation indicates that all three channels experienced growth in daytime viewers, though Fox News still gained the most. It had an increase of 9% in viewership, followed by CNN (7%) and MSNBC (3%) respectively.

Cable News Daytime Average Audience

1998 - 2005, by Channel

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Source: Nielsen Media Research, used under license

This is a clear example of how a major news event — Katrina in this case — can alter the figures considerably. Before Katrina (looking at cable ratings from January through August), cable viewership by average measurement showed no growth in daytime audience and only moderate growth during prime time. Just adding the month of September, when Katrina occurred, sent daytime average growth soaring. Prime time also grew, though not to the same extent. By the end of the year, the audience numbers had again leveled out. But the effect of this one big story was enough to improve numbers for the year.2

Indeed, if one uses mean, the measure that cable channels use with advertisers, the picture for CNN, whose audience fluctuates more with breaking news events, changes considerably. It changes from losing in both time periods to gaining at the same rate as Fox News — a phenomenon that in fact occurred only in one month of the year.

How do the two measures, mean versus median, fit together? One way to consider them is to look at the two over time — how much the figures for each changed year-to-year. Both prime time median audience and average audience grew rapidly in 2000 and 2001, but their paths diverged in 2002 and have remained inconsistent with each other since. The two daytime audience figures have been even more disparate over time.

Cable News Prime Time Audience Growth

Annual Growth Rate, 1999 - 2005, Channels Combined

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Source: Project for Excellence in Journalism analysis of Nielsen Media Research data, used under license

Growth in comparison with previous year

The last three years have been peppered with momentary big news events such as the start of the war in Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s capture, and Hurricane Katrina, illustrating the statistical phenomenon that simple averages are skewed by a few massive spikes . It also highlights the tendency of cable audiences to tune in heavily during big breaking-news moments.