As Big Names Exit, Cable News Operations Grapple With Streaming Future

The rapid-fire departures of some of TV news’ biggest names – Fox News’ Chris Wallace, MSNBC’s Brian Williams, CNN’s Chris Cuomo – the past couple of weeks may be some of the first shots in a coming war as the industry moves from cosseted sinecures in traditional linear TV toward a fuller embrace of the streaming revolution.

Certainly, Wallace’s departure from Fox News after 18 years represents one such big shift, heading as he is to an unspecified role on CNN’s planned streaming service, CNN Plus, which reportedly hopes to launch in the first quarter of 2022. He may be joined by Williams, who signed off a week ago after 28 years with NBC News.

Unlike Wallace, Williams was vague about his next career steps, though at 62, he seems unlikely to be done doing that thing he does in front of a camera. Whether he ends up at CNN or in some other, perhaps more independent role – perhaps making documentaries and special programming, writing books and giving speeches – likely won’t be settled until at least after the holidays.

Williams’ departure isn’t the only hole looming over the MSNBC lineup. Rachel Maddow, who signed a big contract extension in August, has said she’d like to pull back from the nightly grind and do larger projects, which could be an important addition to MSNBC programming as it shifts more resources to its hybrid live and on-demand presence as part of streaming service Peacock.

The most unexpected chasm to fill, however, hit CNN just as it was building toward that streaming launch amid the merger plans for its parent WarnerMedia with Discovery. Cuomo had been the network’s highest-rated personality, and certainly would have had a prominent role in the SVOD operation. But he was fired after an internal investigation showed excessive involvement in his politician brother’s defense from sexual-harassment accusations. 

The big 24-hour news outlets have remained largely cosseted from the economic and technology trends that have buffeted other parts of their parent media companies in broadcast and cable TV. Even as cord-cutting continues to slowly erode their audiences, the all-news channels have remained a lucrative pillar of what’s left of pay TV, delivering steady audiences.

Nielsen data says CNN total prime-time viewership is down a whopping 70% from last year, dropping to last among the Big Three, though it’s still second in the 25-to-54 demographic that advertisers covet. MSNBC is down 52% overall, and Fox News has dropped 34%. 

Those brutal declines suggest none of the services can afford to count on life in the traditional pay-TV bundle as it slowly collapses. How soon the companies fully make the leap to direct-to-consumer is another important question.

“(Streaming news will hit) critical mass likely within three to five years,” said Steve Ridge, EVP of the TV News Group at market research firm Screen Engine/ASI and a long-time advisor to both local and national news organizations. “It’s going to reach a point where it tips over. The content and distribution alignment are being formed now. Everybody is willing to bet on the come for a little while.”

The changes are hitting at the local level too, where many of the big station groups have been aggregating and streaming newscasts and other local programming from their many broadcast stations, including Scripps’ Newsy, Sinclair’s STIRR and Gray TV’s VUit. After years of slow decline, many of those stations found new relevance during the pandemic for viewers wanting the latest news about the virus response in their home town.

Screen Engine testing in 30 markets found that the pandemic actually increased the value to many viewers of so-called hyperlocal news about “Covid, masking, what's happening in schools, everything to do with that,” Ridge said. “It used to be people watched the local news for the weather. The intensity (of viewer engagement) has really gone up.” 

Weather and climate have also proved big draws for former residents streaming the latest updates on their former cities hit with disasters such as Hurricane Ida and last weekend’s blitz of Midwest tornadoes, according to a VUit study released this week. High school sports continue to be popular too. 

The VUit study also suggested another intriguing direction for news both local and national: programming targeting non-English-speaking and other niche audiences of many kinds.

VUit’s most-watched station in 2021 was KTSF, which streams news coverage in multiple Asian languages. The biggest non-English-speaking audience in the United States got its own subscription streaming service this past week, as Univision launched Noticias Univision 24/7, featuring breaking stories, opinion and other material for Spanish speakers. Noticias is part of Univision’s PrendeTV linear ad-supported service.

“There will be more niche plays, as the menu gets bigger,” Ridge said. “In some cases, you get tremendous scale, but in other cases, as long as costs aren't out of whack, you can get a return on investment” with a niche news streaming service. 

As for the Big Three negotiating the transition to the streaming future, plenty of decisions remain, starting with filling those big holes in their respective lineups. Likely there are deep enough benches on all the Big Three for new talent to step up.

But the more consequential decision revolves around how soon companies move from their pay-TV perches more fully into direct-to-consumer streaming. How will they structure programming to both meet requirements of their existing pay-TV contracts while creating compelling streaming options? Unlike their entertainment-side brethren, there’s not a lot of evergreen programming in news that can be shown on demand in perpetuity.

As well, CNN faces a question about what kind of programming will feature in its evening lineup. Cuomo was, like the divisive figures on Fox News’ evening lineup, all about opinion and entertainment. But big personalities are expensive, and as the flameouts of Cuomo and predecessors such as Fox News stars Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck show, come with some big potential downsides.

“I do think there is some inherent value in some of these big brand names, such as (Chris) Wallace or Rachel Maddow or Brian Williams,” Ridge said. “That's one path (for big news outlets of the future). But (recent departures) also means opportunities for others to move up or over. This is really a big chess game, is what I would say. There’s going to be a lot of moving pieces that are going to be head turners.” 

One move might be a return to hard news in the evening. CNBC regularly touts the just-the-facts approach of its year-old evening newscast anchored by Shepard Smith, who departed Fox in 2019.

David Zaslav, the CEO in waiting for CNN’s future parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, has said he wants to make the combined company “a world leader in news,” while his boss and future WBD board member John Malone said he "would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing.”

That hard-news approach would contrast sharply with the approach of Fox Nation, the subscription service from Fox News that features lifestyle programming with its on-air stars as hosts. Though Fox executives have pronounced themselves happy with Fox Nation signups so far, third-party estimates still put the total subscribers at something south of 300,000. Will CNN Plus be a lifestyle play designed to feed its most ardent fans? Or will it bet on breaking news, especially in an election year in 2022, to help drive interest and signups?

Plenty of other questions still hover, and not just for CNN and its Plus One. But it’s a crucial time where the services, both national and local, can begin to sort themselves out for their streaming futures.

“Just three years ago, there was incredible skepticism about the future, but I think we've turned the corner,” Ridge said. “It's an exciting time, There are just very high awareness, curiosity. consumers are engaged in the process. Technology continues to change. It really is sort of a revolutionary period.”