The MSM Gets What It Deserves [Reader Post]

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It could not happen to a nicer bunch of people.

CNN’s Ratings Falling Faster than Obama’s

from Powerline

CNN, which pioneered cable news, now rates dead last among cable news networks. Prime time ratings are down 68 percent since last year. Of course, much of that is due to 2008 being an election year, but CNN’s fall relative to the other news networks can’t be blamed on the election cycle.

Can some of CNN’s decline, at least, be attributed to the network’s liberalism in general and its attacks on and sniggering denigrations of, normal Americans? It’s hard to tell. But sniggerer-in-chief Anderson Cooper’s ratings are sliding into the toilet. (The midsummer blip was Michael Jackson’s death.):

CNN apparently has tried to market its on-air personalities by having them participate in the television show Jeopardy, thereby showing off their superior intelligence. That hasn’t worked out too well either. If the network really gets desperate, it could consider covering the news straight. But that isn’t likely: look how many newspapers have preferred to go bankrupt rather than abandon their liberal bias.

And the fun is not limited to the Communist News Network.

US newspaper circulation down 10.6 percent as rate of decline accelerates amid rising prices

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Circulation at newspapers shrank at an accelerated pace in the past six months, driven in part by stiff price increases imposed by publishers scrambling to offset rapidly eroding advertising sales.

Average daily circulation at 379 U.S. newspapers plunged 10.6 percent in the April-September period from the same six-month stretch last year, according to figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

It’s the largest drop recorded so far during the past decade’s steady decline in paid readership — a span that has coincided with an explosion of online news sources that don’t charge readers for access. Many newspapers also have been reducing delivery to far-flung locales and increasing prices to get more money out of their remaining sales.

The latest decline outstripped a 7.1 percent decrease in the October 2008-March 2009 period and a 4.6 percent decline in last year’s April-September window.

As both publications indicated earlier in the month, The Wall Street Journal surpassed USA Today as the top-selling newspaper in the United States. The Journal’s average Monday-Friday circulation edged up 0.6 percent to 2.02 million — making it the only daily newspaper in the top 25 to see an increase.

USA Today suffered the worst erosion in its 27-year history, dropping more than 17 percent to 1.90 million. The newspaper, owned by Gannett Co., has blamed reductions in travel for much of the circulation shortfall, because many of its single-copy sales come in airports and hotels.

The New York Times stayed in third place at 927,851, down 7.3 percent from the same period of 2008. Its Sunday edition remained the top weekend seller at 1.4 million, a decrease of 2.6 percent.

Sunday circulation at all the newspapers covered in the ABC survey fell 7.5 percent in the latest six-month span.

The circulation numbers are just the latest sign of distress in the shrinking newspaper industry.

Newspapers are trying to recover from a steep drop in advertising revenue — traditionally their main source of money. The worst U.S. recession since World War II and the lure of the Internet have combined to make the industry’s annual ad revenue $20 billion less than it was three years ago.

To compensate, many of the nation’s largest publishers are raising the subscription rates and newsstand prices for their print editions.

Some newspapers also are planning to charge for access to at least some sections of their Web sites. Besides bringing in more revenue, the online fees could cause more people to keep subscribing to the print editions if fewer stories are available for free on the Web. But it would also threaten to shrink their online audiences, making it more difficult to sell the Internet ads that are gradually replacing some forms of marketing in print.

Although higher prices for print editions alienate some readers, enough of them are footing the bill to funnel more money to newspapers.

For instance, circulation revenue at The New York Times Co. and another major newspaper publisher, McClatchy Co., climbed by 7 percent during the summer, even though they both lost subscribers.

Bringing in more money from readers is now more important than trying to preserve circulation, according to Mark Adkins, president of the San Francisco Chronicle. His newspaper suffered a nearly 26 percent drop in circulation in the April-September period to 251,782. But the remaining subscribers collectively pay the Chronicle more than its much larger audience did in the previous year, Adkins said.

The Chronicle now charges $7.75 per week for home delivery, up from $4.75 in the previous year. Weekday copies sell for $1 on the newsstand, up from 75 cents.

“The new circulation revenue has become an important part of our business model,” Adkins said. “We are pretty pleased.”

The Dallas Morning News attributes about half of the 22 percent decline in its weekday circulation to higher prices. The newspaper, owned by A.H. Belo Corp., averaged circulation of 263,810 during the period. Despite the erosion, the Morning News now gets about 40 percent of revenue from circulation, up from the industry’s traditional average of 20 percent.

“While we knew our reported circulation would be down, the key was that we were growing circulation revenue significantly,” said Morning News Publisher Jim Moroney.

Both the San Francisco Chronicle and The Dallas Morning News say they are investing their additional circulation revenue in improvements aimed at retaining their remaining audiences — with the hope the advertisers will want to connect with a more engaged and loyal group of readers. There’s a potential downside, too: If newspaper circulation keeps tumbling, advertisers may demand rate cuts and could even shift more of their marketing budgets to media that reach more people.

Other newspapers such as the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News have curtailed their home delivery schedules to save money. Since March 30, Detroit’s two biggest dailies have limited home delivery to Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays — the editions that sell the most advertising. Readers can get electronic versions of the newspapers on the other days or buy a print copy on newsstands.

The Free Press, the bigger of the two newspapers, ended the latest reporting period with average weekday circulation of 269,729, down 9.6 percent from last year.

A few newspapers, mostly smaller ones, added subscribers during the reporting period. Of all the newspapers with a paid circulation of more than 50,000, the York Daily Record in Pennsylvania saw the biggest increase — rising 16.5 percent to 55,370. The newspaper’s publisher and managing editor didn’t return messages Monday.

AP Business Writer Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this story.
The link is here.

No one is more deserving of a career change then the lying media, save perhaps the Dems….

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I canceled my subscription to the Dallas Morning News after they refused to cover the Van Jones and Acorn scandals. If a newspaper can’t provide “news,” why pay for it?

Anderson Cooper Vandirbilt. What has he done with his life?…. working for a D rated TV company and ephimeral ideas. The decline in the media and its employee are a reflection of an embraced ideology that is wrong and leads us to nowhere.

To think that in the 1900’s, the Vanderbilt family used to represent hard work and reward.

People like the Vanderbilts, the Carnegies or the Rockefellers…their story used to inspire people all over the world to became rich and succesful in this world. The American dream!. It is sad to see what their descendents have done to their name.

How many Vandirbilts are there today waiting to fall? For what? For Marxist ideas that destroy society. It is only innate for humans to want to maximize their utility, create profit in life, and pass it on to their children…so whay would humans punish themselves with marxists ideology that eventually destroy them in total decadence?

I got disgusted with both CNN and USA Today back in the 1990’s. I used to travel a great deal (domestic and international), and I noticed that the headlines on CNN in the morning were nearly identical to those of the USAToday slipped under my hotel room door – in fact, I recall some of the wording to be nearly identical. Same lead stories and same angles – so I began looking for news elsewhere, figuring the stuff CNN/USAtoday was peddling must be homogenized for a large audience appeal. That’s when I began to distrust them – I had already thrown in the towel on ABC, CBS and NBC with their “newscasters” weaving their opinions into their so-called reporting.

It is too bad that the general reporting in “The Wall Street Journal” has fallen off and gotten so “liberal” – at least their opinion page is conservative.

It’s funny that people who watch Fox “News” and listen to Rush Limbaugh label other media “the MSM”. Um, hello? Fox is owned by Newscorp which is one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world and Rush has the largest talk radio audience in the country. It doesn’t get any more “mainstream” than that now does it?

Cool!!

A stinking dirty liberal has finally recognized that the former MSM is being overtaken by Fox and Rush!!!

Soon, the planet will be ours!!! Muhahahahah!!

And that is why Glenn Beck is correct in calling it the “fringe” media!

Dirt
You have blundered into uncovering Carl Rove’s dirty plot. Damn

DS you are as dumb as dirt. You don’t get the fact that the “msm” label is a joke, a form of mocking, etc.
We really need better quality trolls.

In an effort to raise their rating they’ve decided to broadcast a wider selection of viewpoints.
Socialist
Pinko
Marxist
and the ever popular gulag sporting, evil scumsucking Red

Recession is the main cause regarding the drop of paper delivery. There is a huge down and loss in the morning paper delivery.