This Just In…

CNN is very much in the news today due to its ghastly decision--in search of ratings and a chunk of the Fox News audience--to give Donald Trump a high-visibility platform last night to recycle his ever more shrill and ever more tired lies.  That they presented this convicted sex offender and obsessive liar before a hand-selected audience of Trumpistas made that decision ever worse.  Host/moderator Kaitlin Collins bravely tried to provide some counters to Trump's tirades, but her civility was no match for Trump's firehose of harsh lies.  I only made it through the first ten minutes before my digestive system threatened to rebel and I switched it off.

Those of my podcast adherents who have noticed my Zelig-like qualities will not be surprised to learn that, yes, I have an extended CNN history.  Back in 1980, when CNN had first launched, I pounded the table--as was my wont--as to how my then employer Warner Communications simply MUST develop a competing entrant in what struck me as a soon-to-be inevitably important sector of cable television.  I pointed out that, while we had ample cable TV expertise, we had no significant--or even insignificant--skills in news gathering.

So I went to my valued partner Edward Bleier, Exec. VP of Warner Bros. Television, and a recognized expert on all things broadcasting.  My thought was that we should approach the New York Times and propose a joint venture to create a serious competitor to the then-nascent CNN.  Eddie wisely responded that the Washington Post Company would make a better, less bureaucratic partner, and that he would approach a friend of his there.  As I recall, the concept found serious favor, reaching senior members of the Post's business management. We made them a proposal for a true partnership.  We would combine our significant position in cable television (the Post also had one, but much smaller) with their worldwide prowess in the news business (they owned Newsweek in addition to the Post.)  

The idea received enthusiastic support from both the business and the editorial sides of the Washington Post Company, with a formal proposal bucked all the way to Chairman/CEO Kay Graham herself.  And there, sadly, it died.  We were told that Mrs. Graham was becoming increasingly risk-adverse and, while she saw the upside, she also saw the risk of coming in a distant second to CNN.

For the next twenty years, my involvement with CNN was mostly limited to being a devoted viewer, a relationship only diminished by the advent of smart, sassy MSNBC in the late 1990s.  But professionally I had become a freelance journalist, with my prime outlet my own bi-weekly column in Variety, covering the business side of show business.  I modestly named my column "It's Only Money."  Around 2001, I read an announcement by the management of CNN's parent company, the ill-fated AOL-Time Warner, saying they were concerned by a noticeable softening in CNN's profit margins. (As I recall, CNN's worldwide operating profits that year were "only" about $300 million.)

I then devoted an entire column to a simple question: "WHY does CNN need to make ANY money?"  I reached back into my memory of the broadcast industry in the 1970s when, prior to the emergence of cable, CBS, NBC and ABC commanded 90+% of the total TV viewership. Each of these three networks had a "News Division" which was most definitely NOT a profit center.  The managements of each news division, I explained to Variety's readers, in those days were charged with not LOSING too much money.  Making an actual profit from providing a public service--worldwide news coverage--was simply unimagined.  To be fair, the broadcast networks were obligated to provide news coverage as partial recompense for their having been given access to the publicly-owned airwaves; cable operators, by comparison, had erected their own wired networks at substantial cost to their investors.

AOL Time Warner, in the heady days right after what later proved to be the most ill-fated merger in American business history, sported a combined market cap of $300 billion.  Surely, I argued to the readers of Variety, it could afford to run CNN as a quasi-public service.  Instead its management was threatening major layoffs to buttress the network's already robust profit margins.   I realized that it was rank heresy in the early days of the 21st Century, to suggest that the management of a major division of a public company might have a goal beyond profit maximization.  But I thought tossing out such an idea might cause someone in the upper ranks of the parent company management to at least consider focusing on the quality of the product, and not just on the almighty bottom line.  Silly me.  

However, my modest reward came in the form of a winsome handwritten two-line note from the then newly-appointed CEO of CNN, the brilliant and charming Walter Isaacson.  It read:  "Mr. Smith, After reading your thoughts on CNN, I have just one question--can I work for you?"  

I now sadly reflect on the fact that only 20 years ago, someone of the extraordinary intellectual quality and sterling character of Walter Isaacson could be found running a broadcast network such as CNN.   He must now look on with unadulterated horror at what his former dominion has become.  It has sold its soul for a mess of pottage, as last month CNN's audience share in the prized 25-49 demo for the first time slipped below its rival MSNBC.  

Fox News will likely remain atop the ratings heap for the foreseeable future, even without the odious Tucker Carlson.  But surely CNN's fate will be a permanent third place, no matter how much it genuflects before Donald Trump in what I am certain will be a vain attempt to secure a chunk of the Fox audience.  CNN, once the unquestioned leader in cable news, looks to be permanently mired in third place.  Chasing ratings, and thus profits, by pandering to right-wingers won't IMHO rescue it from its well-earned ignominious fate.