Is the internet revolution the final death blow to network news?
The nightly network news broadcasts have shown a calamitous drop in influence and viewership in the past decade. The following table shows the percentage of Americans who get news from each listed source "every day".
|
|
1995 |
2004 |
change |
|
Nightly Network News |
62 |
36 |
-26 |
|
Cable News Programs |
23 |
39 |
+16 |
|
Talk Radio |
12 |
22 |
+10 |
|
The Internet |
3 |
20 |
+17 |
Source: Gallup
In the late 90s and the early part of this century, the networks suffered a 1-2 punch from talk radio and cable news programs. In the past two years, the internet has come close to throwing the knockout blow. (If the chart above were to include only the period from 2002-2004, it would show that every other medium has declined while the internet has increased.)
In 1995, the nightly network news broadcasts were the #1 source of "every day" news for Americans. By 1998 the networks had slipped to #2 behind local TV news. By 1999, they had fallen to #3 behind local newspapers. They have now fallen to #4 behind cable news. At the current rates of change, they will fall to #5 behind the internet by 2007 or 2008.
Source: Gallup
Of every 100 Americans, three per year have abandoned the nightly network news year after year for the past nine years, and the rate of decline has not slowed at all recently. In fact it has continued to deteriorate at about the same rate of three points per year between 2002 and 2004. As you can see in the chart above, the slope of the red line is quite consistent. In other words, the networks will lose about half of their viewership in the decade from early 1995 to early 2005. I suppose this represents revolutionary rather than evolutionary change. The precipitous downward slope must be about the same as the one showing the decline in the percentage of people using horse-drawn buggies after the invention of the motorcar.