CNN SLUMPS AS HYSTERIA FATIGUE STARTS TO BITE
It may have escaped your notice if you have already tuned out, but the US news cycle is increasingly run on pure hysteria.
This is cheap replacement for solid, informative content. Also it is much easier to manipulate and bend to ulterior motives than good informative content, allowing it to be marketed as a "derivative" to interested parties -- i.e. billionaires, oligarchs, and politicians eager to distort the nation's political culture for their own advantage.
It is therefore understandable that hard-pressed mainstream news corporations, which have seen their relevance and profitability slump sharply in recent years due to the internet, should resort increasingly to hysteria as both a cost-cutting measure as well as something with derivative value.
The problem, however, is that hysteria as a cultural commodity has a short shelf life and soon creates "fake news," boredom, and revulsion toxins that soon undercut its effectiveness as a cheap substitute for good content. This is now being revealed in the latest viewing figures, which show that hysteria fatigue is now destroying the already diminishing audiences of the legacy media.
As reported recently by Breitbart:
CNN suffered another ratings embarrassment last week, once again losing a significant amount of viewers in comparison to the same week last year.
AdWeek reports that in the week of August 13-19, CNN experienced a 23 percent drop in total viewer average during primetime in comparison to the same week in 2017. During the daytime, there was another drop in ratings of 24 percent since last year.
MSNBC...experienced a drop of 8 percent in primetime and 5 percent in daytime since last year. Fox News Channel, on the other hand, actually increased their viewership by 4 percent all around.
CNN’s ratings drop is not surprising given the network’s often hysterical coverage of the Trump White House.
Just this week, anti-Trump CNN commentator Ana Navarro attacked First Lady Melania Trump, joking that she “suffered oxygen deprivation to the brain.”
CNN also relies heavily on a “food fight” formula where panelists who disagree are brought on to segments to argue with each other.
The network keeps a handful of pro-Trump contributors around, inviting them on air to argue with anti-Trump commentators. This often produces bizarre moments–last weekend, CNN analyst Phil Mudd melted down on air after pro-Trump contributor Paris Dennard pointed out that individuals with security clearances can use those clearances in the private sector to financially benefit them.
“We’re done. We’re done. Get out!” Mudd snarled.
This kind of thing is fun at first but week-after-week, it soon becomes trite, boring, and emotionally tiring, meaning that an increasing number of viewers are forced to seek out Alex Jones's Info Wars channel, where they can enjoy calm, reasoned news coverage while also stocking up on pro-biotics and other energy boosting products, like this:
And these:
In fact this may be the reason why CNN reporters openly campigned to get Alex Jones’ Infowars banned from social media platforms recently.
Such short-term strategies by CNN and other mainstream news sites are clearly failing and, rather than preventing or slowing down their decline, are actually accelerating it.
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