Broadcast News Misses Ratings Bonanza With Too Little Trump

(Bloomberg) -- TV audiences can’t get enough news coverage of Donald Trump. Reporting on pretty much anything else is ratings poison.

Cable networks have figured out how to successfully capitalize on Trump’s outrageous antics, but viewership for NBC, ABC and CBS newscasts have declined as much as 14 percent this year among coveted younger viewers. Broadcasters’ strategy of offering a wider range of stories -- from human interest to health and local crime -- is falling flat with some viewers who have migrated to cable news for coverage of White House drama.

“In the current news environment, in which few headlines are being made that are unrelated to the Trump administration, the narrower agenda of the cable channels is a better fit,” said Andrew Tyndall, author of a website that monitors broadcast nightly newscasts.

In recent years, cable news channels have narrowed their scopes to focus on politics, and that’s paying off in the ratings. CNN’s “The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer” and Fox News’s “Special Report With Bret Baier” -- which both air during the same hour as broadcast news on the east coast -- are up 36 percent and 24 percent among younger viewers this year, respectively. MSNBC, which just debuted a new show, “The Beat With Ari Melber” at that hour, ranked as the most-viewed network in all of cable for the first time on Aug. 16.

Cable also has the added advantage of being on 24 hours a day, while broadcasters are limited to just 23 minutes a night.

“The intensity and speed that news is happening helps cable a lot,” said Andrew Heyward, former president of CBS News. “You can’t afford to wait until 6:30 because seven incredible things have happened since you woke up in the morning.”

CBS, NBC and ABC declined to comment.

Since the start of the year, ABC’s “World News Tonight” has fallen 7 percent among 25-to-54-year-old viewers -- the demographic that advertisers care about most. NBC’s “Nightly News” is down 8 percent, while “CBS Evening News” declined 14 percent in the category.

To be fair, all of broadcast TV is hurting and the nightly news is actually holding up better than other offerings on CBS, NBC and ABC. Plus, their audiences still dwarf cable, with about 24 million viewers a night spread across the three networks. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC average about 5 million total viewers combined.

Broadcasters haven’t ignored Trump. NBC’s Lester Holt, for example, drove the news cycle in May when Trump told him that the Russia investigation was a factor in former FBI Director James Comey’s firing. “CBS Evening News,” third in the ratings, dedicated an entire episode last week to Trump’s comments on the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the reaction to his remarks. Broadcast news executives say their programs are well positioned for the faster-paced news environment because they give viewers a quick way to catch up with the constant deluge of breaking news.

But recent drops for broadcasters adds to a more worrisome and longer-term trend. Audiences have been dwindling for about two decades now, said Heyward, as viewers age and the networks struggle to replace them.

Young viewers, who don’t watch as much TV, are more and more likely to turn to alternate offerings to get their daily news fix: Vice on HBO, Facebook and other social media sites, or podcasts like “The Daily,” which is produced by The New York Times.

Meanwhile, the country has become more polarized, and many viewers simply tune in to the cable channels that cater to their viewpoints and political beliefs.

How can broadcasters bring viewers back? Their best option may be sticking to their original reporting and hoping viewers grow tired of Trump, said Heyward, the former CBS News president.

“Cable has placed a bet that people want to hear about controversies around Trump all day long,” he said. “The evening news is in a different game and they abandon that at their peril.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Gerry Smith in New York at gsmith233@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Crayton Harrison at tharrison5@bloomberg.net, Jessica Brice