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The Daily Show Regains Footing After Trevor Noah’s Exit

The Mar. 22 edition was most notable, as its 472,000 viewer figure was the first to top any of Noah’s final two weeks.

Doug Pucci

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Comedy Central’s long-running satirical news program The Daily Show has entered its fourth month of weekly hosts, following the departure of Trevor Noah whose seven-year hosting stint concluded on Dec. 8, 2022.

For Noah’s final week (Dec. 5-8, 2022), the 30-minute portion of The Daily Show averaged 441,000 viewers including 147,000 within the key 25-54 demographic, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The first batch of its guest hosts, which began in January, drew noticeably less than Noah (although still potent for today’s cable news demo levels) in comparison:

Leslie Jones (Jan. 17-19, 2023): 335,000 viewers; 129,000 adults 25-54

Wanda Sykes (Jan. 23-26, 2023): 343,000 viewers; 111,000 adults 25-54

DL Hughley (Jan. 30-Feb. 2, 2023): 292,000 viewers; 107,000 adults 25-54

Chelsea Handler (Feb. 6-9, 2023): 306,000 viewers; 82,000 adults 25-54

Sarah Silverman (Feb. 13-16, 2023): 366,000 viewers; 121,000 adults 25-54

Following a one-week hiatus on President’s Week in February, it returned with a familiar face to loyal fans: Hasan Minhaj, former Daily Show correspondent from 2014-18 and host of his 2018-20 Netflix current events commentary show Patriot Act. Minhaj-hosted Daily Show episodes from Feb. 27 thru Mar. 2 averaged 341,000 viewers and 131,000 adults 25-54. As of Apr. 16, Minhaj’s week earned the best demo average of 2023 thus far.

Total viewership for Daily Show had seen slight gains from weeks prior with the hosts that followed, actor-comedian Marlon Wayans (Mar. 6-9: 359,000 viewers; 128,000 adults 25-54) and actor/former Obama staffer Kal Penn (Mar. 13-16: 369,000 viewers; 124,000 adults 25-54).

Coinciding with its return to Noah’s ratings levels from last autumn was the pending indictment of Donald Trump by a New York City grand jury. The news story of the charges against the former President who allegedly paid hush money to former porn star Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election provided much fodder and content to The Daily Show.

Former SNL writer/cast member and former Senator Al Franken (D-MN) hosted the editions on Mar. 20-23 (averaging 438,000 viewers; 112,000 adults 25-54). The Mar. 22 edition was most notable, as its 472,000 viewer figure was the first to top any of Noah’s final two weeks; the 450,000 on Dec. 5th was the best Noah had mustered.

Actor-comedian John Leguizamo (384,000 viewers; 110,000 adults 25-54) took over the reins on Mar. 27-30. Then, one of the show’s current correspondents Roy Wood Jr. became host from Apr. 3-6. Two of his editions also bested the Noah episodes from late November and early December, in total viewers: Apr. 4th (468,000) and Apr. 6th (480,000); the latter of which was the program’s most-watched original telecast since the night President Barack Obama was a guest on Nov. 17, 2022 (501;000).

Wood Jr. delivered 425,000 total viewers including 109,000 adults 25-54 from Apr. 3-6, which also was the week of Trump’s arraignment in New York.

Cable news averages for March 20-25, 2023:

Total Day (Mar. 20-26 @ 6 a.m.-5:59 a.m.)

  • Fox News Channel: 1.310 million viewers; 154,000 adults 25-54
  • MSNBC: 0.769 million viewers; 90,000 adults 25-54
  • CNN: 0.467 million viewers; 90,000 adults 25-54
  • HLN: 0.126 million viewers; 37,000 adults 25-54
  • Fox Business Network: 0.125 million viewers; 14,000 adults 25-54
  • CNBC: 0.115 million viewers; 26,000 adults 25-54
  • Newsmax: 0.109 million viewers; 10,000 adults 25-54
  • The Weather Channel: 0.091 million viewers; 14,000 adults 25-54

Prime Time (Mar. 20-25 @ 8-11 p.m.; Mar. 26 @ 7-11 p.m.)

  • Fox News Channel: 2.065 million viewers; 234,000 adults 25-54
  • MSNBC: 1.218 million viewers; 114,000 adults 25-54
  • CNN: 0.539 million viewers; 116,000 adults 25-54
  • Newsmax: 0.160 million viewers; 19,000 adults 25-54
  • CNBC: 0.155 million viewers; 42,000 adults 25-54
  • HLN: 0.141 million viewers; 35,000 adults 25-54
  • The Weather Channel: 0.108 million viewers; 18,000 adults 25-54
  • NewsNation: 0.092 million viewers; 17,000 adults 25-54
  • Fox Business Network: 0.065 million viewers; 11,000 adults 25-54

Top 10 most-watched cable news programs (and the top programs of other outlets with their respective associated ranks) in total viewers:

1. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Mon. 3/20/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 3.408 million viewers

2. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Tue. 3/21/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 3.285 million viewers

3. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Wed. 3/22/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 3.196 million viewers

4. The Five (FOXNC, Mon. 3/20/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 3.128 million viewers

5. The Five (FOXNC, Tue. 3/21/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 3.093 million viewers

6. The Five (FOXNC, Wed. 3/22/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 3.061 million viewers

7. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Thu. 3/23/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.972 million viewers

8. The Five (FOXNC, Thu. 3/23/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.971 million viewers

9. Hannity (FOXNC, Wed. 3/22/2023 9:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.828 million viewers

10. Jesse Watters Primetime (FOXNC, Mon. 3/20/2023 7:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.769 million viewers

17. Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC, Mon. 3/20/2023 9:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.537 million viewers

166. Real Time With Bill Maher (HBO, Fri. 3/24/2023 10:01 PM, 57 min.) 0.863 million viewers

171. Mark Twain Prize “Adam Sandler” (CNN, Sun. 3/26/2023 8:00 PM, 120 min.) 0.854 million viewers

338. The Daily Show “Mar 22, 23 – Al Franken” (CMDY, Wed. 3/22/2023 11:00 PM, 30 min.) 0.472 million viewers

383. Kudlow (FBN, Tue. 3/21/2023 4:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.361 million viewers

405. Forensic Files (HLN, late Tue. 3/21/2023 12:00 AM, 30 min.) 0.322 million viewers

451. Closing Bell (CNBC, Wed. 3/22/2023 3:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.275 million viewers

468. Weekend Recharge (TWC, Sat. 3/25/2023 12:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.257 million viewers

576. Tooning Out The News “Episode 118” (CMDY, Wed. 3/22/2023 11:30 PM, 30 min.) 0.199 million viewers

635. Newsnation: Rush Hour (NWSN, Mon. 3/20/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.174 million viewers

711. Real Sports (HBO, Tue. 3/21/2023 10:00 PM, 59 min.) 0.145 million viewers

Top 10 cable news programs (and the top  programs of other outlets with their respective associated ranks) among adults 25-54:

1. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Wed. 3/22/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.460 million adults 25-54

2. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Mon. 3/20/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.439 million adults 25-54

3. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Tue. 3/21/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.371 million adults 25-54

4. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Thu. 3/23/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.348 million adults 25-54

5. Gutfeld! (FOXNC, Wed. 3/22/2023 11:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.338 million adults 25-54

6. Hannity (FOXNC, Wed. 3/22/2023 9:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.323 million adults 25-54

7. Tucker Carlson Tonight (FOXNC, Fri. 3/24/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.321 million adults 25-54

8. The Five (FOXNC, Wed. 3/22/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.316 million adults 25-54

9. Jesse Watters Primetime (FOXNC, Wed. 3/22/2023 7:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.304 million adults 25-54

10. The Five (FOXNC, Tue. 3/21/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.298 million adults 25-54

19. Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC, Mon. 3/20/2023 9:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.249 million adults 25-54

29. Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN, Tue. 3/21/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.220 million adults 25-54

141. Real Time With Bill Maher (HBO, Fri. 3/24/2023 10:01 PM, 57 min.) 0.133 million adults 25-54

165. The Daily Show “Mar 21, 23 – Al Franken” (CMDY, Tue. 3/21/2023 11:00 PM, 35 min.) 0.121 million adults 25-54

167. Forensic Files (HLN, late Tue. 3/21/2023 12:00 AM, 30 min.) 0.120 million adults 25-54

287. Shark Tank “Shark Tank 1315” (CNBC, Sun. 3/26/2023 10:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.092 million adults 25-54

388. Tooning Out The News “Episode 118” (CMDY, Wed. 3/22/2023 11:30 PM, 30 min.) 0.070 million adults 25-54

473. Weekend Recharge (TWC, Sat. 3/25/2023 11:00 AM, 60 min.) 0.056 million adults 25-54

489. Real Sports (HBO, Tue. 3/21/2023 10:00 PM, 59 min.) 0.054 million adults 25-54

570. The Big Money Show (FBN, Mon. 3/20/2023 1:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.042 million adults 25-54

586. Newsnation: Rush Hour (NWSN, Thu. 3/23/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.040 million adults 25-54

Source: Live+Same Day data, Nielsen Media Research

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BNM Writers

It’s Time for News Radio to Clean Its Clock

With radio, the top of the hour always begins with a self-aggrandizing, overly-produced introduction to a program I may have been listening to for half an hour already.

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A photo of clocks

News radio is an interruptive format that swiftly moves listeners from one informative topic to
the next but over the years we’ve gotten bogged down with an insufferable amount of clutter: too many commercials, endless promos and teases, and pointless production pieces. All of it
interrupts the flow and cuts into the interesting information you promise to provide.

Let’s clean the clutter, starting with the anachronistic basis for it all: your hourly format clock.

I’ve never understood why radio stations root themselves to the clock. The show starts at the top of the hour and you bury your boring features at the end. Why? Why should the top of the hour be considered the beginning of anything? It’s not how people live their lives. Radio isn’t like TV where shows start at specific times. Hell, TV isn’t that way anymore.

But with news radio, the top of the hour always begins with a self-aggrandizing, overly-produced introduction to a program I may have been listening to for half an hour already. This is especially true with morning shows, where simple logic would suggest that people trying to get to work by the top of an hour begin listening at various times before then.

Who even owns a clock radio anymore?

The 21st century is nonstop. There is no daily news cycle, no beginning or end to anything but
news radio programmers still think of time in divisions of hours, minutes, and seconds. We still draw empty circles depicting analog clocks to plot hourly radio formats.

On news and talk stations, the top of the hour almost always begins with the hourly network
report. It’s the biggest of big-time radio, steeped in tradition, professionally detached, global. In other words, it sounds nothing like your radio station in your unique market and it contains the least interesting content you have to offer.

We cling to the networks at the top of the hour for their prestige, because that’s just how we’ve always done it. Any national or international stories of real interest to Americans, the latest Trump-Biden court decisions, for example, will be well covered in talk shows and you’ll probably want to drop it into your local programming, too. How about a one-minute segment twice an hour, 60 seconds of just the big national and world stuff, in 10-15-second boil-in-the-bag headline segments? I’m just spitballing here. You’re the programmer.

In my heretical news radio mind, the networks do great journalism but they still sound flat,
stuffy, and old-fashioned. They don’t sound like anything else on my station. I’ll dump the top-of-the-hour five minutes and cherry-pick the network sound bites. We’ll deliver them ourselves.

While I’m carving up your format and trying to get you thinking outside the box, do you need
traffic reports every ten minutes? Or, at all? Heresy, I know. Catch your breath and read on.

When we had real-time airborne local reporters telling us what they were looking at it had a gee-whiz factor and the information mattered because it was live, local first-hand reporting. I could imagine the scene as it was being described. Now we have reporters in booths looking at
computer feeds and doing shotgun-style traffic reports for multiple cities. Words without
pictures.

I knew an L.A.-based traffic reporter who did reports for Salt Lake City though she had never even been there. These so-called “real-time traffic” reports are nearly always recorded and delayed for playback. Does this practice serve any purpose at all except to deceive listeners?

Not incidentally, traffic reports are a prime target for AI exploitation. How difficult can it be to
attach state and local transportation agency traffic data to AI voice-to-speech generators? For all I know this is already being done. You can argue it’s cost-efficient but as a longtime morning news host/anchor/personality, I despise it. One of the greatest assets to any morning news team is the interaction between news and traffic people.

When Amy Chodroff and I started working together at KLIF a dozen years ago we had that human contact with remarkable radio veteran Bill Jackson doing traffic from an adjoining studio. Bill wasn’t just a voice, he was a talented news radio veteran and a valued part of our show. He was so good the company, Cumulus, put two more stations on his plate, ripping a valued team member away from us.

As hosts, Amy and I had to assume Bill wasn’t able to listen to the show anymore because he
was too busy gathering and preparing his reports for the other stations. Then he was shipped out of the building to do his work from home which made his insights and witty exchanges
impossible. We couldn’t talk to each other off the air. We couldn’t exchange glances, smiles, and hand signals or bump into each other in the hall. Our show suffered and our audience became a bit more detached.

Bill Jackson, real name Dale Kuckelburg, was also significantly detached from his career.

But I digress. The biggest problem with traffic reports is the shotgun approach I mentioned,
telling everybody in our listening area driving to their unique destinations how traffic is snarled thirty miles away. Good god, we have apps in our cars that do a much better job in real time.

How about the weather? What the hell, we’re swinging the ax here. Let’s be realistic.

There isn’t a day in my life that I don’t wake up with a fair idea of what weather I should expect. I don’t need someone on the radio telling me to carry an umbrella. If it’s iffy the immediate and highly local details are now available at the touch of an app. When the weather becomes of critical and life-threatening importance it’s a major news story and that’s when local radio news shines, making it the center of our continuous attention, not just a regular feature at scheduled times.

It’s your radio station, do what you think is best. I’m only suggesting that you might want to
reevaluate all the things we’ve all taken for granted for far too long.

News radio has always been an interruptive format. We promise listeners “the news you need” in the time it takes them to drive to work. They understand that they’ll receive useful and
interesting content in exchange for frequent subject switching and sponsorships. The great news stations know how to capitalize on that agreement but too many have sold their souls to
commercial clutter that chokes a news team’s ability to serve the promised meal.

As if 22 minutes of inane and repetitive commercials per hour aren’t bad enough programmers, struggling to do their work in a hurricane of increasing spotloads, add to the clutter with recorded promos that simply beseech listeners to keep listening while offering nothing of substance. Meanwhile, the same programmers tell talent to tease, tease, tease the subjects they’ll talk about six, twelve, and twenty minutes from now.

I know the business reality. Radio — especially news radio — is struggling to meet the profit insistence of corporate boards and the overhead needs of staying afloat locally. But at some point, we must answer the question, who do we have to serve first, our clients or our audience?

Station managers and their corporate masters have to stop issuing profit mandates without
offering programmers the opportunity to do their jobs, to provide more valuable content while
limiting commercial minutes, sponsorship rhetoric, and eliminating distracting bells and
whistles.

Clean your clock. Stop filling empty circles with stuff that made sense 50 years ago but is merely clutter today.

The only way to think outside the box is to get rid of the box.

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BNM Writers

AM 680 WCBM Leapt Into Action As the Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapsed

Our employees live and work here and know what’s important to our listeners.

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As Americans woke up to a cargo ship hitting Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge Tuesday morning, the crew at AM 680 WCBM was already hard at work gathering the facts.

Just before 1:30 AM, a cargo ship lost power exiting the Baltimore harbor, striking a support beam that toppled the 47-year-old structure. In the wreckage, six people working on the bridge died, while drivers were rescued from the rubble in the chilly waters of the Curtis Bay.

The AM news/talk station — which celebrated its 100th anniversary Thursday — went wall-to-wall breaking coverage, something most outlets now avoid because of budget concerns. 680 WCBM morning host and Program Director Sean Casey told BNM in an email exchange how his crews handled the breaking news.


BNM: When did you guys hit the air with breaking news coverage?

Sean Casey: We first broke in with updates at 3:30 AM, approximately two hours after the bridge collapsed. Breaking news updates continued every half hour until 6 AM.”

BNM: How did you coordinate coverage in those moments?

SC: Full wall-to-wall coverage started at 6 AM and included full newscasts as well as interviews with state and local law enforcement agencies, eyewitness call-ins, and our national news partners. Our producer made call-outs and our news department shifted to full-blown local coverage.

BNM: How much experience did you have in putting together coverage of an event like that on the fly?

SC: Having been on the air during 9/11, I used the same formula that listeners want to know: Who, What, When, and Where? The why will come later.

BNM: How does your coverage show the importance of both local radio and AM radio?

SC: In times of breaking news events that impact our listeners, local AM radio stations are more in tune with the local listening audience. Our employees live and work here and know what’s important to our listeners. We also know the local players and officials and can get immediate reaction.

The talk component of our news/talk format offers listeners a chance to vent, share, and communicate with each other in good and bad times. This is why AM radio is still relevant. In some emergencies you can lose your cell service or have too weak of a signal, AM radio remains viable for in-car listening and at home with battery backup.

The AM 680 WCBM morning host and Program Director concluded his thoughts by noting the importance of a team effort, not only in coverage of breaking news events but also in operating a successful station and business as a whole.

“One of the biggest concerns we have is budgetary. More and more AM stations are abandoning the format because of its expense. Very few can afford a live and local news staff and show hosts,” Casey told Barrett News Media.

“Now more than ever, it’s vital that there be synergy between ownership, sales, and programming to maximize ratings and revenue so that we can continue to deliver vital information to listeners in our market.”

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BNM Writers

News is the Only Thing Missing From Election Coverage

Coverage of the election is, as we’ve discussed, still very horse-race-centric, and there’s been, of course, coverage of the various Trump court cases, but where is the coverage of exactly what the candidates plan to do if elected?

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A photo featuring I voted stickers

The first thought I had when I heard NBC had hired Ronna McDaniel as a commentator for $300,000 a year was to wonder how many actual journalists they could have hired for that money. Then, I recalled that NBC had laid off dozens of news staffers just a few months ago. Then, I remembered that I had just recently written a column decrying news organizations throwing pretty much anybody on the air as a “pundit” and this….

This was worse. It’s one thing to grab some rando who happened to be a minor functionary for the Executive Branch. It’s another to hire someone whose job was to promote election denialism and pretend that her opinion is something valuable for viewers. And, yes, it’s just as ridiculous when news organizations hire former presidential press secretaries (that’s you, Jen Psaki and Sean Spicer), their very jobs were to spin everything in their bosses’ favor and now you’re going to pay them big salaries for, um, what? Because they “have a name” or you’re afraid someone else will snap them up? Why them?

The McDaniel deal lasted five days, one completely unilluminating interview, and one unexpected Chuck Todd spine-growing outburst, so it’ll all blow over soon enough. The problem is, though, the part about having fired several news staffers, and what it means in an election year on both the national and local levels. If you have the money to hire an alleged pundit – any alleged pundit – you have the money to hire reporters, and I don’t mean anchors or opinion show hosts.

Coverage of the election is, as we’ve discussed, still very horse-race-centric, and there’s been, of course, coverage of the various Trump court cases, but where is the coverage of exactly what the candidates plan to do if elected? Who’s probing Project 2025 and why isn’t it front-page, first-segment news? Who’s pressing the Biden administration on Gaza? Is anyone reporting on the candidates’ record on climate change?

Beyond prescription drug prices, is anyone digging into the broken healthcare system and demanding answers from the candidates about what they’ll do to fix it (and not letting Trump get away with “I’ll have a better plan, a beautiful plan” without a single specific detail, like they did in 2016)? Why didn’t anyone focus on, for example, the GOP candidate for governor of North Carolina and his incendiary past comments well before the primary?

Pundits are not going to do the legwork on the issues; they’ll just talk about swing states while John King and Steve Kornacki point at their touchscreen maps. We need reporting on the things that matter (and can affect that horse race, even if most people have made up their minds). It shouldn’t just be Pro Publica and scattered independent journalists doing the dirty work.

Honestly, I don’t want to hear the complaints about the quality of the candidates or how this is a rerun or any of that. (We’ll leave that to The New York Times.) We are a horribly underinformed electorate and we got the horse race we deserve. It might just be idealists like me who think that, just maybe, the news media can play a role in educating the public and bursting the bubbles and echo chambers. This country has survived and prospered for a few centuries with the press shining a light on injustice and corruption.

Now, when we need that most, they’re more concerned with what they think will bring them ratings and money (although someone will have to explain to me who thought having Ronna McDaniel as a paid commentator would draw a single viewer to NBC).

Here’s a thought: Don’t lay off reporters, especially in an election year.  Assign them to dig deep on issues that matter to the voters.

Let the pundits talk about that.

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