Billionaire Radio Owner John Catsimatidis Says He Wants To Buy CNN.

[nd2023]

He bought WABC as a toy. A pet project. He doesn’t care if it makes a big profit, he just wants it to cover its expenses, and it is.
CNN needs to remain as it is politically, just left of center. That’s the average viewpoint of Americans. Democrats tend to win a larger population overall, Republicans only hang in there because they win land area.

 

[TheBigA]

Democrats tend to win a larger population overall, Republicans only hang in there because they win land area.

Except that it has nothing to do with viewership of CNN. Just like it has nothing to do with the listenership of progressive radio.

 

[Rusty Muck]

Here’s the thing: the viewership for cable news is extremely limited and a tiny fraction of the entire population. Plus the demos for all the channels that are rated (including Newsmax) skew very, very old.

CNN is doomed no matter what because their current ownership is pursuing the quixotic dream of an audience that does not exist and never will exist. Even in the glory days of the early 90s, no one watched CNN outside of breaking news.

I don’t see any real future in a cable channel that no one watches with a business model that is unworkable.

 

[TheBigA]

I don’t see any real future in a cable channel that no one watches with a business model that is unworkable.

Keep in mind though that cable channels are not much different from radio stations in that they're managed as a cluster. So it's possible to have dogs in your radio cluster if they provide value in other ways. That's what CNN is in the Warner Medis Discovery cluster. If you look at all of the Discovery channels, there are many with lower ratings and worse demos than CNN. So don't view CNN by itself without putting it in context with the rest of the bigger company.

 

[Voicetrack of Reason]

I doubt that more than a fraction of a percent of people in Detroit even know who he is and fewer know what he has done with WABC.

I should have been more clear... I was referring to local radio people. Cumulus has ruined WJR. The station doesn't even have a newsroom anymore. It's only a pipedream, but changes made by Mr. Cats would probably bring the station back to relevance, much as it did with WABC.

 

[TheBigA]

It's only a pipedream, but changes made by Mr. Cats would probably bring the station back to relevance, much as it did with WABC.

Therein lies the problem with local radio. In order to have an effect, you need to buy and operate stations in more than one place. Not so with a cable TV channel.

 

[davideduardo]

So he puts in 10% and the investors put in 90% and he thinks they will hire him to run it? Not any investors I know.

I'm sure, based on his success, that he can get any number of investment bankers to give him the money.

Once again, the business of CNN is more than a single channel. It's a content machine. That content machine is valuable to someone. The question is who can do the most with it. I don't know. Discovery thinks they can use it to help the value of the rest of their business. We'll see.

And, as I said, Cats gets great in-market publicity from this. On the long-shot of CNN being spun off separately because of its severely tarnished image, he is there reaping very "positive press" over the situation.

 

[Rusty Muck]

It's only a pipedream, but changes made by Mr. Cats would probably bring the station back to relevance, much as it did with WABC.

Has WABC really been “brought back to relevance”? It could safely be said that no one under 35 knows the station even exists, let alone actually tries to listen.

 

[davideduardo]

Has WABC really been “brought back to relevance”? It could safely be said that no one under 35 knows the station even exists, let alone actually tries to listen.

On the other hand, the station is now well inside the top 10 in 12+ audience. The May book, out Monday, looks like they will be around a 3.7-3.9 in 12+ which would be 8th overall (I am guessing at week #4).

The issue is whether there are enough local direct accounts that don't use "agency logic" to buy advertising and which are willing to be on a politically polarized radio station.