Posted Jul 6th 2007 4:50PM by Jonathan Berr Filed under: Products and services, Industry, Television, Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), Time Warner (TWX), Marketing and advertising, Employees, Columns, News Corp'B' (NWS), Media World News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Fox News channel received praise from an unlikely source: former CNN anchor Aaron Brown.
In an interview with , Brown described Fox as "very disciplined, ratings-directed news organization, or whatever they are" and CNN as "an organization that is trying to figure out if it can be all things to all people." Though Brown is bitter about his departure from the Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) network, he does have a point.
Fox didn't only win the cable ratings war because of politics. It hired better broadcasters and put out more memorable shows. Roger Ailes figured out early that people tune into cable expecting opinions and that's what Fox gave them.
CNN has fought back though, adding blowhards such as Glenn Beck and Nancy Grace, CNN Headline News does decently in the ratings. Lou Dobbs' crusade against illegal immigration also has resonated with the public, which is kind of scary. It's also scored its share of scoops including Larry King's Paris Hilton interview.
(Yeah she's horrible, but people are interested). But CNN has as much chance of catching Fox in the ratings as Yahoo! Inc.
(NASDAQ: YHOO) has in toppling Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) from the top of the search market. Media habits are hard to break once they've been established so probably won't have to change with the times.
People know what to expect from Fox. The same can't be said for CNN. When TV Newser asked Brown about his plans, he replied; "It's much clearer to me what I want to do than what I do want to do," Brown said.
"I certainly don't want to anchor another cable news show." But the future isn't entirely bleak for CNN. Fox's conservative pro-war, pro-Bush views also are increasingly out of step with the American public.
But that's not going to stop people from tuning in to the channel. In fact, Fox was ahead of the curve when it comes to the blurring of news and opinion, a development that displeases me. The result of this, though, is that people know what they're getting when they tune into Fox.
The same can not really be said for CNN.
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