2004 Annual Report - Cable TV Audience

Reach 

One other factor has hastened cable's growth, particularly Fox News's. Over the last five years, Fox News and MSNBC have become available in more people's homes.

Shortly after their launches in 1996, Fox News was available in 21 million homes, and MSNBC in 33 million. CNN, meanwhile, was already available in 72 million homes. Now, the numbers are much closer, with CNN available in 86 million homes, Fox News in 80 million, and MSNBC in 76 million.

Now Fox News could have difficulty, however, trying to build more audience. There are 90 million cable homes and that number is not likely to increase very much. Thus, most increases in Fox News ratings would depend on people choosing its programming rather than suddenly having Fox News available to them for the first time. By the same token, this added availability, or "carriage," makes the lack of growth at MSNBC appear more pronounced. Even if only a steady but modest percentage of cable subscribers preferred MSNBC, it would have seen its ratings grow based on expanding the number of available households.

Demographics

There is another facet of cable news usage that bears noting. The average age of those who watch the cable news channels is older than for other cable programming. While these may be affluent elites watching the news, they are older elites. This may be a sign of danger ahead for cable news.

The median age for CNN viewers is 59.6; for Fox News it is 58.3, and for MSNBC it is 52.4.¹⁸

This gives Fox News a slight advantage over CNN and has always been the key to MSNBC's appeal - it has the youngest cable audience.

The age of its viewers offers some advantages to cable over broadcast networks, though again, the limits of when broadcast news shows air is probably a key factor. In fall 2003, the median age for the three network evening news programs ranged from 59.5 for ABC to 60.3 for NBC to 61.2 for CBS, slightly older than cable.

The limits of who is home when the broadcast news programs are shown is probably a factor. While retirees may be home at 6:30 or 7 pm, working people are more likely to be still on the job or in transit. The fact that these demographic figures for cable are based only on home viewership, not in hotels, airports or offices, where again many workers are likely to be in the evening, may also skew those numbers older as well.