Is the evening network newscast on the rebound?
After a disastrous 30-year period in which the U.S. audience fell by more than half, are the Big Three staging an against-the-odds comeback? And could it be happening just as everyone else in Old Media is being rocked by things digital?
As unlikely as that seems, something is happening. The evening news audience has now grown in three of the last four years, according to Nielsen, and is up about 12 percent since 2010. It appears 2015 will be yet another growth year. Compared to the 57 percent decline that began in 1980, this must feel like a Super Bowl victory to network executives.
The long decline of the evening news was actually worse than that 57 percent number because it came during a time when the U.S. population grew by more than 80 million people. On a per-capita basis, then, the drop has been more on the order of a calamitous 70 percent. That’s comparable to newspapers’ plummeting circulation that occurred during the same three decades.
And nearly all of that decline, much of it caused by competition from cable and fundamental work/life changes, came before the Internet began making life even more miserable for Old Media. It looked to me, anyway, like network news was on a glide path to ever-smaller audiences.
Now, though, it’s cable news that seems to be losing viewers, and the old-fashioned appointment news of ABC, CBS and NBC that’s gaining.
There are a number of theories (though they seem more like guesses) about why the decline in audience suddenly stopped. One is the same argument made in recent years by newspaper executives — that as the digital revolution carves up the media landscape into smaller and smaller pieces, big institutional voices like the network newscast and the metropolitan daily become ports in the storm for news consumers. Late last year, well before his six-month suspension, the former NBC anchor Brian Williams told the Los Angeles Times: “We are a growth stock… And I have a secret theory that perhaps the best thing that happened to us is the rise of other media devices. The miniaturization of everything else has made us loom a little larger.”
Another offered explanation is that by better differentiating their newscasts — as opposed to the decades-long model of basically offering the same product — the networks are drawing a few more viewers.
I have my own guess, and it’s not one the networks would find favorable. I suspect that demographics are at work, and that the real gains are occurring among baby boomers, who have just begun to retire. The post-war baby boom generation is a massive 50 percent larger than the preceding one, and their retirement will provide a nice, naturally occurring growth curve of evening news recruits. They may not have had time to watch when they were working full time, but now it’s a different story, at least for many. The initial wave of the big boomer class turned 65 in 2011, the first year of the networks’ current rebound.
So while the networks have made much in recent months of data suggesting they are attracting more young viewers, be wary. First of all, “younger” in network-speak means ages 25 to 54. And the numbers suggest the real gains are coming from the fast-growing older crowd.
That, of course, would only exacerbate the network news’ problem of playing to a very old demographic — one that doesn’t interest advertisers much. But it sure beats continued decline.
If oddsmakers made book on the long-term future of the evening network newscast, my guess is they’d still see a shaky future for the traditional network news model, which really hasn’t changed that much for a half-century. For now, though, the networks are able to talk about the possibility of a sustained period of expanding audiences. David Muir, the newish ABC anchor and a symbol of the new optimism, had not started grade school yet the last time that happened.