PEW & TVNews Archive Data


Pew Research Data
From: Key Indicators in Media & News, March 2014:
Network primetime news viewership (ABC, CBS, NBC):  22.6M
NBC  8.4M
ABC  7.7M
CBS  6.5M

Cable primetime viewership (CNN, MSNBC, Fox): 3M
Fox         1.75M
MSNBC   619.5K
CNN        543K

PBS NewsHour viewership:   977K

Digital: 82% of Americans get news online from computer, 54% from mobile
Yahoo                      ? (higher than HuffPost)
Huffington Post     45M / month
Washington Post   19M / mo.
Buzzfeed                 17M / mo.
ProPublica              445K (Oct. 2012, plus more from syndicated columns)

From How Americans Get TV News at Home, October 2013:
TV news consumption by US adults “over course of a month” (Nielsen, Feb 2013):
% people,    avg. time:        top 1/3    mid 1/3    bot 1/3
Local news            71%      12.3 minutes    21.8 min.      6.5         1.2
Network news      65%           12.4               31.6              5.1         0.6
Cable news           38%           25.3               72.4              3.2         0.2

From State of the News Media 2013:
Network news skews older:  average age- 53,  (median age gen. pop.- 37)

Network news viewership declined:
1980-   50+M
1994-   40M
2002-   30M
2013-   22+M

Sunday shows (last 6 months, 2012, “on average”):
CBS Face the Nation   2.97M
NBC Meet the Press   2.94M
ABC This Week            2.57M
Fox News Sunday       1.24M

*                *                *                *                *                *                *

TVNews Archive Network Database
ABC
Al Jazeera America
BBC America
Bloomberg
CBS
CNBC
CNN
CSPAN
CW
Comedy Central
Current
Estrella TV
FOX
FOX Business
FOX News
ION
LINKTV
MSNBC
NBC
PBS
TLN
TeleFutura
Telemundo
Unavision

Note on TVNews Archive Database Gaps
The TVNews Archive database consists of closed caption data from news shows on the networks it supports (see list above). Since closed captioning is text data, it is searchable.

I came across an error in 2014 when I was searching MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow show (now defunct). When doing a search, I always try to use multiple expressions for a given topic to ensure completeness for search integrity (e.g. “climate change”, “global warming”, etc.). One such search on MSNBC produced a hit for one expression but not another when both were contained in the same video clip. I contacted TVNews Archive and inquired about this. They told me there are gaps in the closed captioning data sometimes, and that there is nothing they can do to catch or flag it.

This is an obvious problem when writing about the shortcomings of the news media–one cannot blame them for under reporting if they are not guilty of it. The most I can do is note the problem in blogs that reference TVNews Archive. (Cases where I also emailed the networks for confirmation are also noted.)

I have satisfied myself that, so far, for the blogs where TVNews Archive was used, the results have shown patterns that, even with some gaps, would not significantly alter the conclusions of the blog given the scope of the search- ie. the terms, and time frame searched.