CNN boss: If we break away from Trump coverage 'the audience goes away'

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

CNN President Jeff Zucker said his network's audience would dwindle if its news programming shifted away from covering President Trump.

In an interview published in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, Zucker said the reason why CNN spends much of the day reporting on Trump's day-to-day activities and his rhetoric stems from viewer demand.

“People say all the time, ‘Oh, I don’t want to talk about Trump, I’ve had too much Trump,’ ” Zucker told Vanity Fair. “And yet at the end of the day, all they want to do is talk about Trump."

"We’ve seen that anytime you break away from the Trump story and cover other events in this era, the audience goes away," he added. "So we know that, right now, Donald Trump dominates.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/414390-cnn-boss-if-we-break-from-trump-coverage-the-audience-goes-away

Hence why I don't watch CNN that much.

[Roland99]

1. Bingo. The problem with 24/7 news channels. The constant need to drum up viewership

[Wounded Bear]

2. Hmmm, maybe you're catering to the wrong audience...

[Proud Liberal Dem]

17. Yeah

maybe the rest of us thinking Americans would tune IN if there was something other than 24-7-365 coverage of Trump. Just a thought......

[Squinch]

3. I turn them off every time his ugly face or idiotic voice comes on.

[Cha]

4. Yeah, cnn/jeff zucker.. you stay with

that fucking dictator asshole and an altogether Other Audience Runs Away.

[unblock]

5. "Sorry, but I'm making too much money driving the country into this ditch"

"I'll be glad to help the country just as soon as you figure out how to make it more profitable for me"

[smirkymonkey]

22. +1

So unfortunate that everything boils down to money.

[RockRaven]

6. Maybe if your non-Trump content was something other than vapid garbage and argument panels

people would tune in rather than tune out when you go away from Trump.

This is one of those "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" complaints.

Get f*cked, Zucker!

[unblock]

7. He needs to head up an entertainment channel. That's not the voice of a newsman.

[Ron Green]

28. They are all entertainment channels now.

They’re trapped in a financial model that demands quantity, not quality.

[vi5]

8. He's right and many here on DU are guilty as charged....

Until people stop watching cable news, they'll continue to get the ratings they want and they'll continue to give the people what they want.

You all have the internet. There is literally nothing on cable news that you cannot find 8 trillion other places at the click of a mouse or finger. I have not watched a minute of cable news in easily 10 years or more and I don't at any point feel like I'm missing a single thing, or out of the loop or any of it.

There is zero reason for anyone to watch any cable news. O.K. if you want to give Rachel Maddow your time and give her the ratings then that is fine. Until then, anyone who watches cable news is responsible and culpable for their giving Trump exactly what he wants: tv time and attention.

[JonLP24]

15. Rachel Maddow covers the Russia scandal far more than other Primetime hosts

On CNN and Fox News so the topics she covers are important as well give history and trivia lessons that always has a point.

Overall I agree though I can be guilty of watching CNN during the daytime.

[marylandblue]

23. +1 I don't watch cable news either

I also think we talk about Trump too much on DU. Every idiocy that comes out of his mouth starts a dozen new threads. We should talk more about Democratic politicians and ideas.

[vi5]

30. It also frightens me...

....too many of our leaders and Dem politicians in general fall for the ruse that bipartisanship is somehow a noble goal and an end in and of itself. I worry that with Trump gone that will be what they cling to, and go back to naively(and that's being generous because the alternative is too odious for me to consider) believing that they CAN or that they SHOULD negotiate with Republican terrorists.

[marylandblue]

40. Democracy depends on compromise, so I don't mind if they try to

But I find that the Democrats are not very good at negotiating. I hope we learn to do better.

[Moostache]

9. Yeah? So?

If you stop handing out free crack, the crackheads go away too...what's you point? That it is OK to participate in the gaslighting of the republic because ratings rule?

Pathetic...journalism is not supposed to be about profits and ratings, it is supposed to be about truth and accountability of the powerful to the powerless. I would recommend a new career is better suited to 90% of the executives making decisions on coverage for the "news"...

[PSPS]

10. CNN's version of Les Moonves: "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CNN."

[Rizen]

11. Because sensationalism

in the media, Trump's gained a lot of free publicity. What's been proven from this whole nightmare is conservatives will support him; as long as he's racist and authoritarian there's no bad publicity.

[tavernier]

12. Every time he's on I switch channels

and I know I’m not alone.

[Raven123]

13. Then I'm in the minority

I got so tired of Trump speaking about the media and the media debating over Trump that I have just tuned out.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

14. When will these pricks get it? 2 fucking years (which feel like 6) and these godamn hacks

are still propping up this goddamn monstrosity.

[Va Lefty]

18. I don't think they will ever get it.

If "enemy of the people" doesn't drive home the point, nothing will.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

21. Maybe they can exchange stories about the ratings in "the good ol'

days" when they're thrown in the gulags "for the enemies of the republic" or some shit. Yeah it's hyperbolic, I know. But still......

[Afromania]

16. They need to learn how to talk about trump without talking about him.

What they need to do is talk about the policies and how they are affecting people. We don't need 30 clips of him staying stupid stuff. We also don't need the talking heads pontificating about how he's so awful.

We all know Trump is a piece of Walking garbage and that anything, and I do mean ANYTHING, that comes out of that dude's mouth is a bold faced lie.

Just give us the facts. There is no ambiguity in the truth and no way to spin the gop view point now that the masks are off, or on to be more aproppo.

[ProudLib72]

29. +1

No more clips! No more annoying, whiny voice! No more platform!!!

I watched about fifteen minutes of Anderson Cooper the other night. He played about ten clips of the Rump yammering away. That was enough for me. There is really no reason for that. Why not read a transcript?

[malaise]

19. Fuck him

They made that choice.
They are promoting a serial. Liar, a racist, a fascist and tax evader and 'fraudster' and criminal who settled in court for a fraudulent university to make money.

Where is his evidence?
This is profit over country - fuck you.

[Garrett78]

20. Do they ever break away from Trump enough to really back that up?

[Hekate]

24. Uh, no. I go away when the Mad King is on live. Lissen, Jeff Z, this is the guy who had a bomb sent.

....your way. Being mealy-mouthed has not helped you so far -- why think it will help now?

[edbermac]

25. The guy behind the Leno/Conan fiasco.

In 2010, in response to a public controversy over the network's reported rescheduling of late-night hosts Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien, Los Angeles Times reporters Meg James and Matea Gold wrote that Zucker's tenure had led to "a spectacular fall by the country's premier television network" and dubbed the intra-network feud and subsequent public relations fallout "one of the biggest debacles in television history".[22] Under Zucker NBC fell from being the number one rated network to the lowest rated of the four broadcast networks and was occasionally being beaten in the ratings by programming on some of the more popular cable channels.

Days later, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote that in Hollywood "there has been a single topic of discussion: How does Jeff Zucker keep rising and rising while the fortunes of NBC keep falling and falling? ...many in the Hollywood community have always regarded him as ...a network Napoleon who never bothered to learn about developing shows and managing talent." She explained that Zucker "is a master at managing up with bosses and calculating cost-per-hour benefits, but even though he made money on cable shows, he could not program the network to save his life."[23]

Dowd also reported that an unnamed "honcho at another network" stated that "Zucker is a case study in the most destructive media executive ever to exist... You’d have to tell me who else has taken a once-great network and literally destroyed it."[23]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Tonight_Show_conflict

[MiniMe]

26. Actually, for me at least, I change the channel if I see or hear tRump

I can't stand all the BS

[bluestarone]

27. EXACTLY what i do

Or the grand oh MUTE BUTTON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SWBTATTReg]

31. I agree that rump is too much of a topic but at least its mostly negative as it should be. I ...

recall when he started that the other repug candidates were complaining about all of the coverage he got for free. Now he's complaining because the coverage is all negative (except faux news which is worthless and isn't news anyway, it's gossip). You reap what you sow.

When we get our democratic candidates in office, there will be lots of things to do that I think we can talk about that do need discussions and the like, such as reverting the lopsided trends towards awarding the 1%ers vs. average everyday Americans. Seems like a gross distortion here. Other areas need to be enhanced and acted upon, and I guarantee you that rump is NOT going to provide any leadership. If anything, he's going to go constantly on road trips for the so called 2020 campaign (which I don't think he's going to do, he is stealing the money in broad daylight).

We have to provide the leadership (democratic candidates) since you've seen the republican controlled Congress show just how they act in a leadership fashion, by awarding their donors and not the American people w/ tax cuts first.

[EffieBlack]

32. Maybe you should seek out a new audience

[appleannie1943]

33. I never watch them anyway.

[zonkers]

34. This scares me. It makes me think that Trump could win again. Thank God for Oprah and Ferrilll

[blueinredohio]

35. That's exactly why I don't watch them.

Too much Trump for me.

[Totally Tunsie]

36. Unfortunately, Zucker's comments give credence to tRump's claim

that cable news and the networks would fail without him. Damn...I hate to see him proven right, in this or anything.

While I ha-a-a-a-te the orange bastard, I am strangely fascinated by watching him on TV. It's like watching a car wreck or a fire consuming a building - as horrible as it is, you just can't look away. Of course, much of that is the possibility - or should I say, probability - of hearing him say something so stupid, so absurd that you have to see it as it's happening.

Maybe it's just that I get out all my toxins by screaming at tRumphole as he's speaking. Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[dalton99a]

37. Fuck Jeff Zucker and the monster he created

[Initech]

38. Funny - Trump can't exist without CNN as his punching bag and CNN can't exist without Trump.

I believe that irony has come full circle.

[MineralMan]

39. I haven't watched CNN since 2016

They lost me forever.

[GeorgeGist]

41. As journalist go, Zucker is a ...

dud.