Gallup Doesn’t Want Or Need CNN: Polling Company Ending 14-Year Partnership

First on TVNewser: Citing low viewership and its own ambitions, The Gallup Poll is cutting its ties to CNN this summer.

Reached by phone Tuesday afternoon, Gallup Poll publisher Steve O’Brien confirmed that his company’s partnership with CNN is not being renewed. It runs through the end of June, he said.

The Gallup Poll, “a widely recognized barometer of American opinion,” is frequently cited on CNN broadcasts. Gallup, CNN, and USA Today have been polling partners since 1992.

In a memo dated Wednesday, March 15, CEO Jim Clifton wrote: “We have chosen not to renew our contract with CNN. We have had a great relationship with CNN, but it is not the right alignment for our future.”

“CNN has far fewer viewers than it did in the past, and we feel that our brand was getting lost and diluted,” Clifton continued. “…We have only about 200,000 viewers during our CNN segments.”

Gallup no longer wants a broadcast partner, according to the memo. “We are creating our own program and we don’t want to be married” to one network, Clifton wrote. Analysts like Frank Newport will be seen as more independent under the new arrangement, he added.

“We have offered to help CNN find a new polling partner and to be as helpful as we can during this transition,” Clifton concluded. Gallup IS renewing its deal with USA Today. The newspaper has about 10 million readers per day, the memo noted.

CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.