CNN Host Glenn Beck: The Evening News Is Dead

On the night of November 3, Americans watching television doubted their eyes. That is because an unlikely figure appeared as the host of “Saturday Night Live” on NBC: Brian Williams, the main anchor for NBC evening news, which has 5.8 million viewers across America.

Breaking away from his usual serious self as a news anchor, he did not hesitate to take on a potentially embarrassing comedy role.

One reason that he appeared in the show was because of a strike currently being staged by the U.S. writers’ guild. But it was a drastic move to feature a main news anchor of a broadcasting network in a comedy show. It is comparable with Korean anchors for the evening news hosting a late-night comedy show.

The move was interpreted as NBC’s strategy to restore the dropping viewership of the evening news by increasing the personability of its anchor. It is estimated that each broadcasting company has lost 1 million viewers a year for evening news over the past few years. It is nothing new that news is suffering from the emergence of new media.

Viewership for the main newscast of the U.S. broadcasting networks NBC, ABC, and CBS plunged from 52 million before the 1980s to 25 million today. In particular, the median age of the viewership is around 60, demonstrating that news programs are unpopular among America’s youth.

In a reality show about the struggle of broadcasting news programs to survive, Howard Kurtz, a Washington Post reporter covering the media, cited the reason for declining news viewership as “excessive emphasis on the confrontation between liberals and conservatives, and incessant attacks on broadcasting network news by cable news.”

Cable news channels are leading the mutual attack in the U.S. media. Fox News, which supports the Republican Party, has blamed anti-Bush New York Times and CNN by calling them, “corrupt media which only accuses President Bush.”

The Fox motto ``fair and balanced`` is also an object of mockery. This summer, CNN censured Fox News anchor Bill O`Reilly, and called one of his remarks borderline racist.

In such an environment of cutthroat competition, the “decent” news shows on network companies are easy prey. CNN host Glenn Beck said during his show, “Network evening news is dead. We make the content of the evening news after reading the New York Times, and have lost touch with the ordinary American in the process.”

The recent “collapse of authority” also demonstrates the crisis faced by network news shows. The ABC evening news covered the surge in U.S. troops in Iraq that the Bush administration pushed forward with despite opposition from Democrats, saying that it “produced a short-term achievement.” That affected articles of the next morning’s newspaper. However, the coverage was attacked by anti-war organizations, calling ABC, “Bush’s parrot.”

As viewership continues to decline, the network evening news programs of the three broadcasting networks are facing a crisis.

srkim@donga.com