CBS’ Rick Kaplan: CNN ‘In a freefall’

CBS Evening News EP Rick Kaplan went back to his alma mater, the University of Illinois, yesterday to talk to students about the current state of TV news. “There were 24 million people watching news on a given day last year,” Kaplan said. “Thirty years ago, it was over 100 million.”

Kaplan, who was once president of CNN and later MSNBC, said audience fragmentation is the main culprit of the decline in viewership and revenue. From the DailyIllini.com:

CNN, Kaplan said, is an example of a news organization that has been “in a freefall,” with some of their shows losing over 70 percent of their viewers. Kaplan also pointed out business channel CNBC, which made a profit of over 700 million dollars from a viewership of around 200,000 people.

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