Despite the resounding financial and ratings success of media groups like Fox News, cable audiences declined slightly from 2013 to 2014 — but network and local television saw steady growth, according to the Pew Research Center’s annual “State of the Media” report.
All in all, the big winners in the Pew report are Fox, ABC, CBS News and local television stations.
The biggest losers: NBC News and MSNBC.
Combined average viewership for ABC, CBS and NBC saw an increase of 5 percent, to about 24 million, from 2013 to 2014, the report noted, citing data compiled by Nielsen Media Research.
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However, although NBC saw an impressive 6 percent increase in viewership, it is the only network that experienced a financial decline.
ABC saw a revenue increase of 11 percent, to $144 million for the first three quarters of 2014, the report noted, while CBS took in a 1 percent increase to $117 million in the same period. NBC Nightly News, however, experienced a 4 percent drop in revenue, down from $154 million in 2013 to $148 million.
Evening and morning local news saw viewership numbers increase by 2 and 3 percent, respectively, for the second year in a row, with ad revenues also increasing by 7 percent in 2014 to $20 billion, according to the same report.
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The increase for local television, which is often considered a weak sister among legacy media, is in line with what Quinnipiac found earlier this year when it reported that Americans are turning away from mega news networks and relying more on local news teams for coverage of major events.
“The total median viewership over a 24-hour period for Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC combined dropped 7 percent in 2014 to 1.8 million,” Pew reported. “That marked the first such audience decline by that measure since 2010.”
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MSNBC saw a decline in the 24-hour period of a whopping 14 percent, down to just 334,000 viewers. Fox saw a drop of 2 percent to 1.1 million viewers.
Along with its dwindling audience numbers, MSNBC has also been rated the least trustworthy source of news in the United States, according to a Quinnipiac survey that gauged trust in both cable and network media groups.
CNN saw a 1 percent increase, bringing its numbers up to 417,000.
Prime-time cable news, which is also the most profitable programming block, saw a notable drop-off in 2014, with combined median viewership down by 8 percent for Fox, MSNBC and CNN.
Fox fared best, with only a 1 percent drop to 1.7 million nightly viewers, but CNN fell by 9 percent to 495,000 viewers, while MSNBC stumbled by 8 percent to 568,000.
Total cable news revenues did increase for 2014 by a modest 4 percent, to a combined $3.7 billion, but that’s mostly thanks to Fox.
Of the three networks, only Fox is expected to grow its profits, with estimates putting it at around $1.2 billion for fiscal year 2014, a 10 percent increase from 2013.
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“CNN was projected to experience a 5 percent decline in profit to $327 million, and MSNBC was projected to decline by 8 percent to $206 million,” the report noted. “Still, all three channels continued to enjoy double-digit profit margins: 61 percent at Fox, 41 percent at MSNBC and 29 percent at CNN.”
U.S. newspapers, meanwhile, continued their slow and steady descent into financial loss in 2014, with circulation numbers falling by 3 percent in 2014, while ad revenues fell by 4 percent.
“Ad revenue is now less than half of what it was a decade ago and daily circulation is down 19 percent over that same period,” Pew reported.
