ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, May 13, 1996 TAG: 9605130132
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
NOTE: Above
That old supper-time institution, the network evening news, is swiftly losing its popularity, a national poll says. The percentage of people who say they regularly watch the networks' news programs has fallen by nearly a third in three years.
The survey says television has become a less important source for news in general: Viewing of TV magazine shows is down from 43 percent in 1994 to 36 percent. Local TV news is still popular, but the share of viewers has fallen, from 72 percent last year to 65 percent.
``Television news is in trouble with the American public,'' concludes the survey by the Pew Center for the People and the Press, a private, nonpartisan research center based in Washington, D.C. ``Fewer Americans are watching it these days.''
The share of those who said they had watched TV news of any sort - network, local or magazine show - ``yesterday'' slipped considerably. It was 59 percent in the new survey; in June 1995, it was 64 percent; as recently as 1994, it had been 74 percent.
And when the question was whether poll respondents watched the network evening news shows ``regularly,'' only 42 percent said they did. Three years ago, 60 percent said they did.
By contrast, newspaper readership, which had declined in recent years, seems to have stabilized. Fifty percent of those asked if they had read a newspaper ``yesterday'' said yes; that was about the same as the 52 percent who said yes in June 1995 and a bit higher than the 45 percent who said yes in March 1995.
Broadcast industry leaders said the survey confirmed a trend observed for years, especially the drop-off in audience for the network evening news programs.
``The other options across the dial have increased explosively,'' said David Bartlett, president of the Radio Television News Directors Association. ``It stands to reason that the traditional network evening broadcasts would lose some audience. They used to be the only game in town.''
But Bartlett said the Pew Center's findings of a shrinking overall TV news audience ``run counter to every other survey that we've seen recently.''
Richard Wald, senior vice president of ABC News, said the dip in news viewing was part of a decline in television viewing in general.
``That's why we're doing a web site, why we're getting into cable news, why we're going into a 24-hour interactive system,'' he said.
Pew Center director Andrew Kohut said the decline in television news viewership arises chiefly from a tuning out by young viewers.
``Newspapers have been experiencing this falloff for some time,'' he said. ``Now it's television's turn.''
He cited possible explanations: competition for time from computers; the Cold War's demise, which made the world seem less threatening; a distrust of politics arising from the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, events that occurred during the formative years of today's younger adults.
Jack Loftus, a spokesman for Nielsen Media Research, noted that, with almost all of the country now within reach of cable television, ``the networks' numbers have no place to go but down.''
Cable offers 36 networks and when a big story breaks, such as last year's Oklahoma City bombing, many of the TV magazine shows switch to a breaking-news format.
Nielsen rating figures tracked with the survey's chief finding.
In the 1975-76 winter season, 48 percent of the nation's TV sets were tuned to the big three commercial networks' evening newscasts. Ten years later, that figure had fallen to 37 percent. In the 1995-96 season, viewing declined just as dramatically; only 26 percent of sets were tuned to the evening news, Nielsen said.
Among viewers younger than 30 in the Pew survey, 64 percent said they were too busy to watch network newscasts often. Only 21 percent of those older than 50 gave that reason.
The survey also said that people with home computers watch television and read newspapers less than other people, but listen to radio more.
The three main networks' anchors - Dan Rather of CBS, Tom Brokaw of NBC and Peter Jennings of ABC - were ranked almost equally by viewers in believability. But all three showed slight slippage on that front. The networks, including CNN, were just about even in credibility, the survey found.
Among other news institutions, credibility was highest for the respondents' hometown papers and for The Wall Street Journal. Survey participants awarded slightly less credibility to USA Today, The Associated Press and such nationally known newspapers as The New York Times, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times.
The Christian Broadcasting Network and C-Span, which chiefly broadcasts congressional sessions and hearings unedited, both outranked interviewer Larry King and commentator Rush Limbaugh on the credibility question.
Politicians were seen as less credible than news outlets. Retired Gen. Colin Powell received a 64 percent credibility rating, followed by President Clinton at 45 percent; Sen. Bob Dole at 32 percent; Ross Perot at 29 percent; and Newt Gingrich at 20 percent.
The survey of news-viewing patterns, involving 1,751 respondents, had a margin of error of 2 percentage points, Pew said. The credibility survey, with 1,007 participants, had a margin of error of 3 points.
LENGTH: Medium: 99 linesby CNB