CNN, Whose Average Viewer Is 61 Years Old, Aims for Millennials

By Chris Ariens 

While the cable news networks are poised to have their best years ever, CNN president Jeff Zucker says don’t expect that to continue.

In fact, the original cable news network is already giving up some of its convention gains to rival MSNBC. As we showed in the weekly ranker on Tuesday, MSNBC topped CNN in total prime-time viewers and in the key A25-54 demo for the second week in a row. Fox News was the most-watched cable network last week in prime time, MSNBC was No. 7 and CNN was No. 16.

But during an investor conference Tuesday, Zucker said he’s looking beyond 2016 and beyond the TV. Zucker said digital advertising makes up 28 percent of CNN’s ad revenue. “Over the next five years … as much as 50 percent of our ad sales will be digital,” he said, according to a report in THR. Zucker said CNN, which has an average age of 61 for TV viewers, is skewing young, digitally.

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“There’s a lot of talk out there about BuzzFeed and Vice and Vox. They’re all good,” Zucker said, adding, “Who’s reaching millennials? It’s CNN.”

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