CNN Stakes a (Contested) Claim to No. 1

Who is the "most watched" cable news network? If you read The New York Times -- or the New York Post, or The Wall Street Journal -- you probably think it's CNN. The Time Warner-owned channel ran full-page ads in all three papers (two of which, of course, are owned by Fox News parent News Corp.) boasting of being the "#1 Most Watched News Network in 2008."

And that's true, of course...unless you interpret "most watched" as "watched by the most people" -- presumably the way most Times/Post/Journal readers would see it. If total viewers is your measure, Fox News actually won the quarter, handily; TV Newser says it was fourth among all cable networks in total viewers, versus 14th-place CNN and 27th-place MSNBC.

CNN is the "most-watched" if you zero in on the adults 25-to-54 demographic -- to be sure, the only group advertisers really care about -- but even then, its win for the quarter is based on a spectacular performance in February, when it hosted three Democratic presidential debates. CNN actually lost to Fox in the 25-54 demo in January and March (and only managed a second-place tie with MSNBC in March). "If Animal Planet had aired debates with Barack and Hillary in this election season, they would have done the same number," says a Fox News spokesperson.

That CNN ad does, in fact, include an explanatory line qualifying the win, but it's in vanishingly tiny gray type, and you need an electron microscope to make it out. A CNN spokeswoman acknowledges the illegibility of the credit line, but notes that Nielsen approved the ad, as it does all print ads based on ratings claims.

What's more, she says, CNN has always bested Fox in the content for cumulative audience, another way of defining "most watched." (In other words, people watch Fox for longer, pushing up the average rating, but more viewers stop by CNN for a quick news fix over a given period. This has long been a standard line of argument for CNN, but it's not a widely-used measure; Time Warner's own James Poniewozik says he's "always skeptical" when someone resorts to citing "cume.") "This ad refers to the demo, but CNN always has a backup of the cumulative claim, too," she says.

UPDATE, 9:04 p.m.: The original version of this item said Fox News hosted no presidential debates in the first quarter. As a commenter points out, Fox did, in fact, host a debate on Jan. 10. My erroneous claim was picked up from that first TV Newser link. Thanks for the catch.

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Scanned by Reena de la Rosa

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