These differences begin with how much news content one gets inside each of these programs. For 30 minutes of programming, we examined the average number of news minutes versus advertisements and promotional announcements.
The nightly newscasts used to be described as 22 minutes of news in a 30-minute program.4 [1] That is no longer the case. In the month of programs studied, the amount of news on the three commercial nightly newscasts, after teases, promotional announcements and commercials were removed, was closer to 18 minutes 48 seconds. This varied, somewhat noticeably, by network. NBC's "Nightly News" had significantly more news content (an average of 19 minutes 45 seconds) than either ABC's "World News Tonight" (18 minutes 30 seconds) or CBS's "Evening News" (18 minutes 56 seconds).
The evening network news nevertheless had more content time than the morning news programs. In the mornings, only 15 minutes 6 seconds of every half-hour is content (based on the first hour of programming), once the commercials, promotional announcements and teases, and local news inserts are removed.
NBC's news program again came out on top. In the New York market, where our sample of morning shows was videotaped, the local NBC station averaged 16 minutes 21 seconds per half-hour. The CBS station was second with 14 minutes 54 seconds and ABC was third with 14 minutes 6 seconds.
While local news inserts were not analyzed in this study, they are certainly an important part of the content for morning news shows. According to research by Andrew Tyndall, in the second quarter of 2003 the local New York stations averaged the following amount of time for local news: WABC averaged 6 minutes in the first hour, WCBS 5 averaged minutes 42 seconds, and WNBC averaged 3 minutes 6 seconds.
The "NewsHour" is "commercial-free," of course, although it still contains teases of what is to come on the program and funding credits and the beginning and end of the program. Still, once those are taken out, there is a good deal more news packed in. In 30 minutes of the "NewsHour," 26 minutes were news content, more than 7 minutes more than on the commercial networks' nightly news and 11 minutes more than on the network morning programs.