Pew: Cable News Still a Major Stop For Campaign News

By Alex Weprin 

Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has a new study out looking at where Americans get their campaign news fix. The good news for TV: cable news and local news still hold the number one and number two slots, respectively. The Internet is right behind them however, and is growing faster than any other source of news, with the national broadcasts lagging behind.

The news isn’t all sunshine and daisies for traditional media, however.

But there is also evidence that role of cable talk might be smaller than it was some years ago. In January 2004, for instance, a combined total of 44% of Americans said they regularly or sometimes watched the shows for campaign information. In January, that number was 34%. Now it is 35%. Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans who said they never watch cable talk shows has risen from 38% in 2004 to 47% today. This possible downward trend in the broad audience for cable talk, moreover, stands in contrast to the trend for cable news in general, which has been among the most stable in audience reach of the older news platforms.

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You can check out the entire report, here.

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