CNN works to keep its political winning streak going

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: CNN works to keep its political winning streak going
The presidential primary race has pushed the news network's audience numbers up. Now it wants to keep the momentum going.
By Matea Gold, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 10, 2008

NEW YORK -- Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama aren't the only ones courting swing voters as the 2008 campaign shifts into its next phase. The ferocious battle for cable news viewers is moving into its own general election mode -- and CNN is striving mightily to keep its primary winning streak going.

The cable news network was the biggest beneficiary of the drawn-out Democratic primary, averaging 1.11 million prime-time viewers this year, a 50% boost over the same period last year. It's the best performance by the channel since the invasion of Iraq in early 2003. In all, CNN gained an average of 368,000 prime-time viewers through June 1, compared with Fox News' 190,000 and MSNBC's 224,000, according to Nielsen Media Research.

But even as its ratings swell, the network faces a rising challenge from MSNBC, which is riding high on the sharp-edged opinions of hosts such as Keith Olbermann, an outspoken Bush critic. And it still has not caught up with dominant Fox News and its popular right-leaning commentators.

To maintain its momentum, CNN is trying to seize the middle ground and distinguish itself from its rivals' opinion-laden programming, even with the outspoken Lou Dobbs on its schedule. "Get the facts from the only news channel to give you all sides," declares a promotional spot on the network. "No spin. No affiliation. No agenda."

"The mood of the country today I think is aggressively independent," said Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S., over lunch in his Time Warner Center office on a recent afternoon. "And what they're looking for are answers, not pat talking points generated by the party headquarters."

"The conventional wisdom up until now has been the more opinionated the better. Our competitors are doing that. . . . We've really tried hard to differentiate ourselves as the real news network."...

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-cnn10-2008jun10,0,4695734.story

[featherman]

1. It will NEVER be a real news network with the likes of Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck

Not to mention transparent GOP shills like Wolf Blitzer and Candy Crowley

[DeepModem Mom]

3. I forgot about Glenn Beck. He's on CNN Headline News, I think? nt

[justgamma]

2. Get the facts from the only news channel to give you all sides

And that is not what this country needs. It needs the truth. CNN played those swiftboat tapes over and over. They rarely showed anybody that was as actual witness or discussed all the evidence that showed it was a bunch of lies. They just thought that they had to show both sides, even though one side was a pack of lies.

People just need the facts, not both sides.