Content-Type: text/html A Content Analysis of Television News Magazine Commodification and Public Interest A Content Analysis of Television News Magazines: Commodification and Public Interest By Kuo-Feng Tseng Ph.D. student Department of Telecommunication Mass Media Ph.D. Program Michigan State University Contact by: 1569 L Spartan Village Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48823 517-355-3207 [log in to unmask] August 6th, 2001 Presented to Radio-Television Journalism Division, AEJMC Washington DC, 2001 Abstract A Content Analysis of Television News Magazine: Commodification and Public Interest This study finds that the competition of the 12-hour prime time news magazines results in more tabloid story topics, especially in 48 Hours, 20/20 and Dateline. The story topic rankings between several news magazines were significantly similar, and those patterns were also found to be consistent with advertising and audience demographics. This indirectly supports the theory of audience commodity that networks use news content to attract certain "lifestyles" of audiences and sell them to the desired advertisers. Presented to Radio-Television Journalism Division, AEJMC Washington DC, 2001 I. Introduction In the past few years, the networks' television news magazine[1] format has become increasingly pervasive in prime-time programming. In the spring of 1999, a second edition of CBS's 60 Minutes was unveiled, ABC expanded to four showings of 20/20, and NBC revised its program schedule to air Dateline five nights a week. These twelve hours of news magazines accounted for nearly 20% of all network prime time programming (Stroud, 1998; Turner and Hosenball, 1998; Zoglin, 1999). Economics is the primary motivation behind the increased pervasiveness of news magazine programming (Rupertus, 1999). They are significantly less expensive to produce (as much as 50% less) than entertainment comedies and dramas, which can run more than $1.2 million per episode (Coe, 1994; Miller, 1998; Stroud, 1998). The ratings of network news magazines are high, frequently occupying spots in the Nielsen Top 20 ratings (Nielsen Media Research, 2000). Also, news magazines are attractive to advertisers and profitable to networks. The annual advertising revenues generated by network news magazines are listed at the top of the prime time programming in the 1998-1999 season (Hollywood Reporter Guide, 1999; Weintraub, 1998). In addition, unlike most successful entertainment programs showing for only few years, a prestigious news magazine can last for decades (McClellan, 1998). As the competition from other multichannel television programming has become more severe over the past quarter century, the networks have seen their share of the national commercial TV audience dwindle from 100% to about 50% in prime time and about 39% on a total day basis. The network share of advertising budgets, meanwhile, has fallen from 100% to about 59 cents for every national TV dollar placed by an advertiser (Mandese, 2000). Therefore, the networks need programming strategies to attract audiences and advertisers. With the advantages of low production fees, high ratings and long-term loyalty of viewership (Rupertus, 1999), originally, news magazines were developed as defense mechanisms, used to fill problematic programming slots. Now, news magazines are a network's "secret weapon". They alleviate programming pressures, fill problematic slots and generate respectable ratings (McClellan, 1992; Stroud, 1998). However, the television news magazine has tended to be characterized by its in-depth, investigative approach to journalism. Networks continually claim that news magazines provide a public service for their audiences, acting as watchdogs and uncovering issues for public debate (Rupertus, 1999). Shifting news professionalism to incorporate entertainment programming strategies has been criticized as market-driven journalism (Demas, 1998; McManus, 1994; Rupertus, 1999; Underwood, 1993; Winch, 1997). The competition for ratings results in more tabloid content and styles in news magazines (Pew Research Center, 1998; 1999; Sutherland, 1997), and crime and sex stories become typically the most popular topics (Ehrlich, 1996; Grabe, 1996; 1999). Most of the existing research has analyzed television news magazines from the perspective of cultural studies (Bird, 1998; Ehrlich, 1996; Langer, 1998; Sholle, 1993). Some of these studies concerned the relationship between the reader and the context, as well as the meanings interpreted; Others conducted a content analysis and compared the news formats and presentation styles in the news magazines (Demas, 1998; Esposito, 1996; Grabe, 1998, 1999; Sutherland, 1997). Very few of them ever analyzed the rise of news magazines from the perspective of economics (Rupertus, 1999). This study attempts to unveil the economic rationale behind the pervasiveness of news magazines and uses a content analysis to examine their impact on the public interest. It systematically examines their annual trends of ratings, advertising revenues, and spot costs. Then it discusses the theory of media commodification and its impact to the presentation of news topics (McManus, 1992, 1995; Meehan 1984, 1986, 1993; Smythe, 1977). II. Literature Review A. Marketplace of Television News Magazines 1. The decline of ratings and advertising in broadcast networks Cable television networks have become the major competitors to broadcast networks in news, entertainment and educational programming (Baldwin et al, 1992a; 1992b; Wirth, 1990; Youn, 1994), and advertising revenues (Dimmick et al, 1992; Glascock, 1993). The total ratings of the broadcasting networks have dropped from 44.8% to 31.7% and the three major networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, lost almost 50% of audiences between 1985 and 1999. In addition, the percentage of networks' advertising revenues among the total television industry dropped from 37.9% to 27.3% between 1985 and 1999. On the other hand, the rating of basic cable networks increased from 3.6% to 24.3% and the advertising revenues of the cable networks increased from 4.7% to 20.7% in the same period (Nielsen Research Center, 2000; Television Bureau of Advertising, 2000). In addition to losing ratings and advertising, the average production fees of network programming have increased a great deal from 1970 ($200,000) to 1995 ($1,000,000). Advertising revenues did not keep up with the rise in production costs in the 1990s, and network profits declined drastically, although the networks introduced severe cost-cutting measures, including huge cutbacks in personnel and departmental budgets (Eastman & Ferguson, 1997; Head et al, 1998). Networks have tried every strategy to boost their ratings (Adams, 1988, 1993; Atkin & Litman, 1986; Eastman et al, 1995; Lin, 1995). The program strategies of lead-in, inheritance effects or count-programming strategies were used to retain audience flows (Cooper, 1996; Tiedge & Ksobiech, 1986; 1987). However, developing new program formats usually requires substantial costs for audience research and production, and nobody can predict exactly what kinds of formats will really appeal to what kind of audience demographics (Owen & Wildman, 1992). For example, the Big Four networks now introduce nearly five dozen new programs to their prime time schedules each year. In the 1990s, 75% of new series typically fell by the wayside. Some were pulled within a few weeks and some were kept on the schedule only until their replacements were readied (Eastman & Ferguson, 1997, p.122-123). 2. The growth of television news magazines in economic perspective In order to survive the competition of multichannel television industry, networks need to develop programming strategies for increasing advertising revenues, cutting production fees and creating a long-term loyalty of viewership (Rupertus, 1999). The television news magazines fit these patterns and began to grow very quickly. Nearly two news magazine shows appeared everyday during prime time of the 1999-2000 season. Table 1 shows the launch year, ownership, ratings, spot costs and advertising revenues of television news magazines. Before 1985, there were only 60 Minutes on CBS (produced since 1968), 20/20 (1978) on ABC and Entertainment Tonight (1981) of the syndication. However, toward the end of the 1980s and the beginning of 1990s, the number of network news magazine programs increased so quickly that there were ten hours weekly in prime time and six programs in syndication in 1994. Although many news magazines appeared in network prime time, most of them were only shown for a short time, like those on NBC and FOX, and few of them survived. However, once the loyalty of viewership has been established, the programs can last for decades. Table 1 shows that if the ratings of news magazines fell below 6.0 - 7.0, they would soon be removed from the prime time schedules. ----- Table 1 about here ----- Before the 1990s, NBC had problems developing a prestigious news magazine (like 60 Minutes on CBS and 20/20 on ABC) until the success of Dateline NBC in 1992, which initiated new competition in news magazine programming. Dateline has expanded its shows annually since 1993 and was aired up to five nights weekly in 1998. Furthermore, 20/20 merged with Prime Time Live and other ABC news magazines to create four nights of 20/20. Finally, 60 Minutes II on CBS was unveiled in 1999 to join the battle. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that several syndicated programs, such as Hard Copy, American Journal, and A Current Affair, ended their shows in 1997-1998 because the audiences, the topics and the guests had been ceded to the networks (Schlosser, 1999). The news magazines are a low-cost, flexible, long-term, profitable alternative to the high-cost, less versatile, high risk, short running entertainment sitcoms and dramas (Rupertus, 1999). Unlike the unpredictable ratings of new dramas or sitcoms, the offspring of the news magazines usually have stable ratings. Table 2 shows the ratings and weekly ranking trends of network news magazines between 1992 to 2000. Although their ratings have dropped significantly over the past few years, their weekly rankings are nearly the same or even better, such as with Dateline. This means that although network news magazines lost audiences, they did not lose as much as the average networks did and their rating performances were better than other entertainment programs. ----- Table 2 about here ----- Table 3 shows the 30-second spot costs of news magazines and other network prime time programming. Although the advertising prices and revenues of news magazines are not as high as those for top entertainment programs at the same rating base, with their low production fees, the prime time news magazine can generate big profits. For example, according to data from Advertising Age, the average one-hour news magazine can be expected to gross roughly $2.7 million. That is for a program that costs up to $700,000 to produce as compared to $1 to $2 million in production costs for a standard hour-long drama (Jensen et al, 1998). ----- Table 3 about here ----- In addition, prestigious news magazines can last for a long time and contribute significant profits to networks. For example, in 1997, advertisers spent a total of $791 million on news magazines, up 12% from 1996 and 20% from 1995 (Weintraub, 1998). Dateline has helped NBC News achieve annual pretax profits of $115 million, compared with annual losses of close to $130 million in the early 1990s, before Dateline debuted. In addition, Dateline accounts for 20% of NBC's prime time advertising revenues in 1999 (PBS, 1999). Annual profits at ABC News are now $75 million, due in large part to the 20/20 franchise. 60 Minutes is certainly one of the most profitable programs in the history of television. Its contribution to CBS's bottom line over the past 30 years is said to exceed $1 billion (McClellan, 1998, July). News magazines can be used to fill in problem slots, apply counter-programming strategy and generate pretty high ratings. For example, stories addressing women's health issues on Dateline NBC now run opposite ABC Monday Night Football. The male-oriented features are used to counter-program shows that target females, such as Dharma & Greg and The Nanny (Carter, 1998a; Stroud, 1998; Miller, 1998). In addition, news magazines have been able to attract groups that are demographically appealing to advertisers. Some advertisers, such as cosmetic and packaged goods companies, prefer to sponsor a news magazine like Dateline NBC because it brings in a more significant portion of the 18-34 year-old demographic than entertainment programs. A news magazine like 60 Minutes tends to attract males with higher socioeconomic status. This is appealing to advertisers such as investment companies (Merrill Lynch, for example) and luxury car companies (Weintraub, 1998). 3. The criticisms of the popular news magazines The increasing growth of the popular news magazines indicates the convergence of news and entertainment programming, and has been criticized for being market-driven journalism, instead of news professionalism (Consoli, 1998; Rupertus, 1999; Weintraub, 1998). The major criticism is using sensational stories and formats to promote ratings and advertising revenues (Grossman, 1999; Paige, 1998; Zoglin, 1998). In the past decade, soft news, defined as stories that focus on a human-interest topic, feature or non-policy issue, has dramatically increased on the national network newscasts (McCartney, 1997; Riffe and Holm, 1999; Scott and Gobetz, 1992). The local television news has also been found to place more emphasis on sensationalism than on public affairs (Hoffstetter and Dozier, 1986; Ryu, 1982; Slattery and Hakanen, 1994; Wulfemeyer, 1982). The increase of soft news in both national and local broadcasts has occurred because it can attract more audience attention. The play theory and the uses and gratification model explain that the consumption of soft news can be viewed as a vehicle by which such enjoyment is obtained, and therefore audiences prefer soft news (Palmgreen & Rayburn, 1985; Rayburn, et al, 1984; Stephenson, 1988). For example, according to the surveys of the Pew Research Center in 1996 and 1998, crime stories were the most popular topic that audiences were interested in. Following the high demand trend of soft news, crime and sex stories are the most prominent topics in syndication tabloid journalism and are now moving into prime-time network news magazines (Ehrlich, 1996; Esposito, 1996; Grabe, 1996; 1999; Paige, 1998). A study from the Center for Media and Public Affairs (1997) found that almost all stories on the top six syndicated news magazines were related to crime, sex, accident/disasters and self-destructive behavior (Media Monitor, 1997). However, as the audience, the topics and the guests have been ceded from the syndication to the networks, over half of the tabloid news magazines were pushed out of the market (Schlosser, 1999). For example, Dateline is now more focused on sensational stories of crime and disasters, and 20/20 reported a significant proportion of stories related to entertainment celebrities (Demas, 1998; Sutherland, 1997). B. News Topics and Agenda Setting Networks claim that news magazines provide a public service for their audience, acting as watchdogs and uncovering issues for public debate (Rupertus, 1999). Where does the public obtain its information about issues and policy alternatives? Many models of public opinion suggest that presentation of issues in the media play an important role in shaping the attitudes of the public (Fan, 1988; Page and Shapiro, 1992; Zaller, 1992, 1994). For example, media serves as the primary mechanism by which elite opinion is communicated to the public (McCombs and Shaw, 1972; Lyengar and Kinder, 1987). This is accomplished through the sheer amount of attention given by media outlets to various issues; the more coverage an issue receives, the further up the agenda it supposedly moves. Agenda setting explains why certain issues in the information environment are considered to be more important than others by the public (McCombs and Shaw, 1993). Experimental evidence demonstrates that when news coverage focuses more on a particular issue, people are more likely to cite the issue as the most important concern facing the nation (Lyengar et al., 1982). By bringing problems to the public's attention, the investigative news attempts to alter societal agenda - "agenda setting" - the notion that the news media can directly influence the public's priorities (Protess et al, 1991). The basic goal of the journalists is to trigger the agenda-building processes. From this perspective, although television news magazines do not ask us what to think, they do tell us what to think about by showing certain topics and agendas in their programming. The study of agenda setting has often centered on the relationship between the agenda set forth in the media and the agenda of the public. That research has usually been concerned with verifying the existence of an agenda-setting effect by the media. Less often, studies examine how the media agenda develops (Berkowitz, 1987). Weaver and Elliott (1985) describe this process as "agenda building," where the focus is on how the press interacts with other institutions in society to create issues of public concern. Instead of analyzing the effects of media agendas on public opinion, this study examines the interactive relationship between news topics and advertising. C. Media Commodification Smythe (1977) claimed that all mass media industries produce but a single commodity - the audience. Networks design programs and construct schedules specifically to attract certain kinds of viewers in large groups and then sell those audiences to advertisers. In Smythe's formulation, the messages were merely bait, just a "free lunch" designed to lure the audience to the point of sale. Once attracted, the audience then spent its "leisure time" with the mediated bait in such a way that media industries could organize that audience into salable categories for purchase by advertisers (McManus, 1992). Furthermore, Meehan (1984) argued that neither messages nor audiences are exchanged, only ratings. Those ratings are produced at a particular juncture by a single company that seeks to maximize its profit and minimize its cost. The ratings per se must no longer be treated as reports of human behavior, but rather as products - as commodities shaped by business exigencies and corporate strategies (Meehan, 1986). Therefore, the ratings become the index to decide how much the advertisers are willing to pay for the commercial spots, and the advertising revenue becomes the major evaluation of the programming performance. The oligopoly competition will only focus on how to increase the ratings. Advertisers have no functional concern with the meaning or consequences of mass communication except insofar as it provides a mechanism for the delivery of their messages to prospective consumers (Bogart, 2000). The competition for the high ratings will reverse back to dominate the programming formats and content, and in indeed, might be in conflict with the performance of public service claimed by the networks. So, rather than each audience member being considered as an equally important citizen (as we would strive for in a normative public sphere), news media are following in the footsteps of urban newspapers and general interest magazines that were not concerned with losing certain segments of their audiences while trying to attract segments that were more economically attractive (McManus, 1992). National advertisers are paying not for news quality, but for audience "quality" and quantity. Advertisers are expected to support the program that generates the largest audience likely to purchase the products offered, at the lowest cost per thousand viewers. News magazines are so focused on ratings that they use audience research to track the public's preferences-not program-by-program, not piece-by-piece, but "minute-by-minute". Producers will learn from seeing these kinds of ratings graphs which segments are likely to be the ones that draw an audience. These are the stories news magazines know can do well, and will interest audiences. Thus they have a way to guarantee that they are going to reach the desirable audience that they are trying to reach by doing this kind of programming (PBS, 1999; Sawyer, 1998). The editorial judgments about what the news magazines are going to air each night are shaped by demographics, ratings, and research. For example, 20/20 was trying to compete against a dramatic show like Hill Street Blues. In order to do that, 20/20 needed to target their stories at competing demographic groups. For example, if Hill Street Blues was reaching an urban audience, 20/20 would try to reach a southern audience with a large group of stories about country and western music stars. Obviously this programming was aimed at particular communities to try and bring in those viewers (PBS, 1999). Dateline now "out-pulls" CBS's venerable 60 Minutes some nights in advertising dollars; the show has become NBC's secret weapon for fixing programming trouble spots. On Wednesdays, it involves a more male-oriented show featuring dangerous animals, travel and adventure, science and technology and other material to counter-program shows more skewed toward females, like CBS's The Nanny. A time when Dateline creates a softer, more featured show aimed at women is when it is up against ABC Monday Night Football. Part of the success of Dateline has been to figure out not just good stories, but good stories that work in good time spots (Stroud, 1998). D. Sensationalism topics and big name hunting The market-driven news magazines usually set their news topics from the perspective of audience interests. In order to attract audiences, many stories on news magazines are related to crime, sex, family, health, consumer issues, and show business, which are also the most popular topics in which people are interested (Weintraub, 1998; Pew Research Center, 1999; Zoglin, 1992). A database search of news magazine topics, conducted by the Media Research Center, revealed that while 20/20 also did some serious stories during a two-month snapshot - the silly segments more frequently outnumbered the substantive (Paige, 1998). For example, consider such stories as the woman who used plastic surgery to remake herself as a Barbie doll; children of sperm-bank donors; husbands who do not listen to their wives; fat football players; the health benefits of telling the truth; modeling-school scams; and poetry-publishing. This is not a category of Jerry Springer moronathons; it is a sample of "news" segment on ABC's 20/20 during the first two months of 1998 (Paige, 1998). The same situation was found in episodes of Dateline where crime and trial related stories overwhelmingly dominated news topics (Paige, 1998; Sutherland, 1997). In addition to crime or sex stories, news magazines often "produce" shocking consumer news to attract audience attention. In the last three years, the news magazines have aired more than 50 segments on auto safety - some of them innocuous consumer tips, but many others featuring allegations of lethal product defects (McGinn and Turner, 1999). For example, Dateline got into trouble for staging an explosion while investigating GM truck safety (Giltin, 1993). ABC's primetime news magazines have suffered a pair of embarrassing legal setbacks: a $10 million libel judgement that a Florida banker won against 20/20 and a $5.5 million verdict against Prime Time Live over its use of hidden cameras to investigate Food Lion supermarkets (Gunther, 1997). Critics contend that in the revved-up effort to lure prime time viewers, some TV news magazine segments are also resorting to dramatic production techniques that not only resemble an entertainment show - but look suspiciously like those used in the more tabloid-oriented shows. The most blatant example occurred when Dateline rigged a GM truck to provide a fire. More subtly, pictures are overlaid with heavy music to enhance emotions, action is slowed, and the cuts are quick (Reibstein, 1994). Probably the most intense competition among the news magazines is for the big, celebrated interview of the moment - Michael J. Fox on his Parkinson's disease, Ken Star on his investigation of the president and, of course, Kathleen Willey and Monica Lewinsky on their alleged Oval Office encounters (PBS, 1999). There were exclusive interviews with the tabloid press star of the week. These shows compete fiercely for such interviews - not just with one another, but also with the daytime talk shows and syndicated magazine shows (Zoglin, 1992). For example, an estimated 74 million people tuned in to see at least part of ABC's 20/20 episode that featured Barbara Walters' interview of Monica Lewinsky, with an average number of viewers at any one time approaching 50 million. At $800,000 per 30-second spot, the episode's advertising rates were about 5 times the show's standard price. Estimated take for the two hour telecast: $30 million (Trigoboff, 1999). III. Research Questions and Hypotheses According to the theory of audience commodity, different news topics are expected to attract different "lifestyles" of audiences and sell to specific advertisers. For example, 60 Minutes has been the leader of the traditional news magazines for over 30 years and it is good at the hard news of politics, international affairs and social justice. Because there is few population of audiences interested in the hard news, it is supposed that other competitors like Dateline and 20/20, would show more soft news in a product differentiation approach, such as crime, health and entertainment stories, to attract other majority of audiences. This study would ask: H1: More soft news will be found in Dateline and 20/20 than 60 Minutes. To argue that the commodity of news product and audience are sold to the desired advertisers, certain types of news contents should attract specific demographics of audiences and advertisers. Therefore, there should be an association between news topics and advertising types. For example, advertisements for cosmetics or grocery products may often appear during episodes covering topics like women's health or celebrities, which target female audiences. This study would ask: H2: 60 Minutes I/II and CNN network have more high social-economic advertising, such as financial services, than other news magazines. H3: There is an associated relationship between the rankings of advertising categorization and those of news topics among the news magazines. IV. Research Methods This study recorded eight weeks of news magazine programs on network channels, cable news channels and the syndicates from Oct. 4 to Nov. 28 in 1999, which covered the new fall season, instead of re-run programming. They generated 96 hours of network news magazines, 64 hours of cable news magazines and 60 hours of syndicated programs. Also there were over 1,400 story segments and 6,000 spots of 30-second advertising. The ratings data from the network, cable channels and syndicated programs were collected from Nielsen Media Research which was compiled in the weekly issues of Broadcasting & Cable. The 30-second advertising spot costs were collected from several issues of Advertising Age. Demographic audience characteristics, such as age, gender, education, occupation and income, were obtained from Simmons Market Research 1997. Each story was the unit of analysis and coded into topic categorization. There were a total of 15 topic categories based on earlier studies (Pew Research Center, 1999; Sutherland, 1997). They were also divided into two subgroups in this study: "Elite Interest" and "General Interest". The "Elite Interest" subgroup included (1) "Politics/Government", (2) "Economics/Business", (3) "Foreign/Diplomacy", (4) "War/Defense", (5) "Social Conflict", (6) "Education", (7) "Health/Welfare", (8) "Science/Technology", and (9) "Art/Culture". The "General Interest" subgroup included (10) "Crime/Court", (11) "Scandal", (12) "Accident/Disaster", (13) "Consumer Alert", (14) "Entertainment/ Sports", and (15) "Other Human Interest". Each of the 30-second advertising spot was another unit of analysis and coded based on the 18 categories. They were divided into four major sub-groups: "General", "High-Tech", "Finance/Business", and "Program Promotion". The "General" group included (1) "Food/Restaurant", (2) "Home Hardware", (3) "Apparel", (4) "Personal Care", (5) "Medicine/Health", and (6) "Movie/Video/Media". The "High-Tech" group included (7) "Electronics", (8) "Automotive", (9) "Telecommunication", and (10) "Computer/ Internet". The "Financial/Business" group included (11) "Financial Service", (12) "Express Mail", (13) "Jewelry/Watch", and (14) "Travel/Resorts". The "Program Promotion" included (15) "Network/Local" and (16) "News Magazine Itself". Finally, (17) "Government/Organization" and (18) "Others" were also included. This study checked the reliability of the coding scheme by applying Cohen's Kappa. Cohen's Kappa = (fo-fc)/(N-fc), but (Po-Pc) / (1-Pc) is a more precise reliability coefficient because it incorporates a correction for the extent of agreement expected by chance alone (Riffe et al, 1999). All reliability coefficients were within the acceptable range. Cohen's Kappa (and standard error for the coefficient) was 0.87 (SE = 0.051) for news topics; 0.96 (SE = 0.021) for advertising. V. Results A. Sensational news topics In Table 4, the categorizations were divided into two subgroups, "Elite Interest" and "General Interest". The percentages of the "Elite Interest" on 60 Minutes I/II and the CNN network were much higher than others: 60 Minutes (81.0%), 60 Minutes II (66.7%), CNN with Time (75.9%) and CNN News Stand (61.9%). Other programs had dropped significantly in "Elite Interest": 20/20 (23.0%), Dateline (20.5%) and MSNBC (32.6%). The percentage of "Elite Interest" of 48 Hours and the syndication programs were very low or even zero: 48 Hours (0%), Entertainment Tonight (0%), Inside Edition (6.0%) and Extra (3.7%). ----- Table 4 about here ----- In the subgroups of "Elite Interest", 60 Minutes emphasized the topics of "Foreign/Diplomacy" (19.0%), "Health/Welfare" (14.3%), "Art/Culture" (14.3%), "Politics/Government" (9.5%), and "Social Conflict" (9.5%). However, 60 Minutes II spent more topics related to "Social Conflict" (19.0%), "Health/Welfare" (14.3%) and "Economics/Business" (9.5%). CNN with Time devoted more stories to "Health/Welfare" (20.7%), "Politics/Government" (10.3%), "Foreign/Diplomacy" (10.3%), "Social Conflict" (10.3%) and "Art/Culture" (10.3%). On the other hand, CNN News Stand devoted many stories to "Economics/Business" (24.8%), and also had a significant number of stories related to the topics of "Politics/Government" (8.4%) and "Science/Technology" (8.0%). The topic of "Health/Welfare" was the most popular on 20/20 (9.2%), Dateline (8.2%) and MSNBC (13.0%). Besides, 20/20 also put an emphasis on "Politics/Government" (6.9%), Dateline on "Science/Technology" (6.8%), and MSNBC on "Education" (8.7%) and "Science/Technology" (8.7%) in the subgroup of "Elite Interest". There was no one topic related to "Economics/Business", "Foreign/ Diplomacy", "War/Defense" and "Art/Culture" on 20/20, Dateline and MSNBC. In the subgroups of "General Interest", except for CNN with Time (6.9%), CNN News Stand (5.3%) and Entertainment Tonight (5.5%), "Crime/Court" was the most popular story topic and usually over 20% in the news magazines. Even 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II devoted significant stories related to crime/court topics and 48 Hours spent all of the stories on the single crime/court topic: 60 Minute (19.0%), 60 Minutes II (19.0%), 20/20 (26.4%), Dateline (30.1%), MSNBC (19.6%), Inside Edition (21.4%) and Extra (20.7%). Except for "Crime/Court", 20/20 devoted stories evenly in other topics: "Scandal" (12.6%), "Consumer Alert" (9.2%), "Entertainment/Spot" (10.3%) and "Human Interest/Myth" (12.6%). Dateline emphasized "Accident/Disaster" (16.4%), "Consumer Alert" (13.7%) and "Entertainment/Sports" (9.6%), and MSNBC focused on "Accident/Disaster" (13.0%), "Consumer Alert" (10.9%), and "Human Interest/Myth" (19.6%). In the syndicated programs, except for "Crime/Court", "Entertainment/Sport" and "Scandal" were the most popular topics: Entertainment Tonight (75.5% and 16.6%), Inside Edition (30.3% and 20.9%) and Extra (32.6% and 20.7%). In addition, "Accident/Disaster" and "Human Interest/Myth" also were found to be significant on Inside Edition (11.9% and 9.0%) and Extra (7.0% and 14.0%). Table 5 shows the Spearman's correlation between each of the news magazines. The highly significant coefficients indicate the similarity of the topic rankings. For example, 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes II and CNN with Time (r = 0.556 - 0.715) are in a group; 20/20, Dateline and MSNBC (r = 0.580 - 0.795) are in a group; and the three syndicated programs, Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition and Extra (r = 0.846 - 0.881) are in a group. However, 48 Hours is not associated with other news magazines because of only focusing on the topic of "Crime/Court". In addition, significant correlation (r = 0.580 - 0.800) exists between the groups of 20/20, Dateline and MSNBC and the group of syndicated programs, because both of the groups emphasize news topics on "General Interests". ----- Table 5 about here ----- B. Advertising Categorization From Table 6, except for 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II, most of the broadcast and syndication programs have large percentages in "General Consumer Product": Entertainment Tonight (59.3%), Inside Edition (53%), Extra (33.7%), 48 Hours (41.4%), 20/20 (36.3%) and Dateline (39.2%). On the other hand, 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes II and the three cable programs have smaller percentage in the general consumer products: 60 Minutes (14.0%), 60 Minutes II (15.1%), MSNBC (16.5%), CNN with Time (8.3%) and CNN Stand News (9.7%). However, "Medicine/Health" still takes a significant proportion in most of the programs. It should also be noted that almost no "Apparel" advertising is present in cable programs and only constitutes a small percentage on 60 Minutes (0.6%) and 60 Minutes II (0.3%). In addition, no "Personal Care" advertising was found in CNN programs. ----- Table 6 about here ----- Most of the "Electronics" and "Telecommunication" advertising was found in significant proportions in all programs. "Automotive" was the popular advertising in all programs with most of them over 10%. In addition, the three cable news programs have very large percentages in "Computer/Internet": MSNBC (32.2%), CNN with Time (19.5%) and CNN News Stand (37.2%). The large percentages of "Financial Service" were found on 60 Minutes (27.3%), 60 Minutes II (19.5%), CNN with Time (22.0%) and CNN News Stand (18.2%). Following those are 48 Hours (10.8%), 20/20 (9.7%), MSNBC (10.6%) and Dateline (5.3%). Only small percentages of "Financial Service" were found in syndicated programs. In addition, the most significant percentages of "Travel/Resorts" were found in the cable programs: CNN with Time (13.2%), CNN News Stand (8.8%) and MSNBC (3.7%). Large percentages of "Network Programming Promotion" were found in broadcasting and cable networks: 60 Minutes (18.4%), 60 Minutes II (20.5%), 48 Hours (20.9%), 20/20 (17.0%), Dateline (18.0%) and MSNBC (15.4%). In addition, some of the news magazines spend a portion of advertising time to promote their own programs: 20/20 (3.9%), Dateline (3.6%), CNN with Time (3.9%), Inside Edition (4.5%) and Extra (4.6%). Because the program Extra was shown at midnight, a very large percentage (27.9%) of "Adult" advertising was found and included in the "Other" category. In Table 7, the Spearman's correlation coefficients show that 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II are very similar in advertising ranking with r = 0.826. They also have moderate relationships with the three cable programs with r = 0.538 - 0.765. The three cable programs have high coefficients with r = 0.777 -0.855. 20/20, Dateline and MSNBC have very high coefficients between them (r = 0.811 - 0.954). They also have moderate relationships with the three syndicated programs (r = 0.518 - 0.641). Finally, the three syndicated tabloids have strong relationships of advertising rankings among them (r = 0.775 - 0.892). ----- Table 7 about here ----- Table 8 shows the percentages of advertising categorization in network, cable, spot and syndication. The percentages of "Food/Restaurant" (23.1%, 18.2%), "Home Hardware" (8.3%, 11.6%) and "Personal Care" (8.6%, 5.9%) are very high in both broadcast and cable networks. However, comparing these results with Table 6, those percentages of categories are a little smaller in network news magazines and very low in cable news magazines. ----- Table 8 about here ----- On the other hand, the percentages of "Financial and Insurance" (5.6%, 8.4%) and "Computer and Software" (2.7%, 3.1%) are much lower in both broadcast and cable news magazines, which means that the broadcast and cable news magazines can attract audiences with higher socioeconomic demographics than other programs. Table 9 shows the demographic data of audiences from Simon Marketing Research 1997. The older audiences have a higher percentage in broadcast and CNN network, especially for 60 minutes. The younger audiences were found in MSNBC and the syndication programs. Males have a higher percentage in CNN network and females have a higher percentage in 20/20, Dateline and the syndicated programs. The audiences of CNN programs have significantly higher education, include more professional managers, and earn larger incomes than audiences of other news magazines. ----- Table 9 about here ----- VI. Discussions A. Product differentiation The media commodifies the audiences for the advertisers by representing "lifestyle" categories in the styles, forms and context of the programming (Jhally, 1990). Prior studies have found that the content and presentation styles of news magazines were distinct to attract different demographics of audiences between the traditional network news magazines and the tabloid ones (Grabe, 1999; Russomanno and Everett, 1996). The topics of most tabloid news magazines were related to crime/violence, sex and accidents/disasters (Media Monitor, 1997) and the traditional news stories were still clearly different from the tabloid ones (Russomanno and Everett, 1996). However, a couple of researchers comparing news topics within those network news magazines found that some of the new programs, such as Dateline and Prime Time Live, had more crime and entertainment stories than 60 Minutes, although hard news topics still took a significant proportion (Committee of Concerned Journalists, 1997; Southerland, 1997). On the other hand, this study found that the proportions of hard news in several network news magazines were significantly reduced from those in the 1997 studies (Pew Research Center, 1997; Sutherland, 1997). For example, nearly 80% of stories on 20/20, Dateline and 48 Hours were related to crime/court, scandal, accident/disaster, consumer affair, entertainment or other human interests. Dateline had over 30.1% of stories related to crime and court, and 48 Hours contributed all stories to a single topic - crime stories. Even 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II report the largest proportion of stories (19%) in crime/court topics and 60 Minutes II began to broadcast more stories related to scandal, disaster/accident and other human interests. The generation of shows that spawned the term "tabloid television" is dying in syndication. But tabloid news magazines have also diminished because certain kinds of tabloid-style stories have migrated to the traditional news organizations (Mifflin, 1999). The boundary between traditional news magazines and tabloid ones is blurring or merging (Rupertus, 1999). The significantly large coefficients of Spearman's correlation indicate the similarity of news topic rankings among the news magazines, especially between the traditional news magazines and the tabloid ones. The topic rankings of 20/20, Dateline and MSNBC Magazine (r = 0.580 - 0.795) are not only similar with one another but also with the syndicated tabloids (r = 0.580 - 0.800), like Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition and Extra, which have 80 % of stories in entertainment, crime/court, and scandal. B. Advertising differentiation and audience commodity Television programs usually target the general public and therefore most of the advertising is related to food/restaurant, home hardware, personal care, medicine, automotive and movies (Table 8; Television Bureau of Advertising, 2000). Comparing the advertising categorization of total television with that of news magazines (Table 6 and 8), this study found that network and cable news magazines have higher percentages in "Financial Service" and "Computer/Internet", but lower percentages in "Food/Restaurant", "Home Hardware" and "Personal Care". On the other hand, the percentages of advertising categorization in the syndicated tabloid are much more similar to that of the total television programming. 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes II and CNN programs have higher percentages in "Financial Service"; the three cable programs focused on "Computer/Internet" and "Travel/Resort"; and 48 Hours, 20/20, Dateline and the syndicated programs have more advertising in "General Product", like food/restaurant, home hardware, personal care, and movies. The Spearman's coefficients of advertising categorization show very high similarities in advertising rankings in 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II; highly consistent in 20/20, Dateline and 48 Hours; the cable network programs in a group; and the syndicated programs in a group. The patterns of advertising correlation are similar to those of news story topics, indirectly indicating an association between news content and advertising. If the demographics data from Simon Media Research were included, it would show that the patterns of story topics, the patterns of advertising and audience demographics are consistent with each other. For example, for 60 Minutes, Dateline and Extra, the story topics had gradually shifted from public debate to crime and entertainment stories; the demographics of audiences shifted from professional managers to the general public; and the advertising from financial management to food, personal care and supermarkets. This is consistent with the findings of some professional journals that news magazines apply the characteristics of topics differentiation and audience segmentation to counter-program and target special advertising (Carter, 1998a; Stroud, 1998; Miller, 1998; Weintraub, 1998). In addition, it also supported the arguments of audience commodity that audiences are grouped by programming and sold for the targeting of specific advertisers (Bogart, 2000; McManus, 1994; Meehan, 1984, 1986; Smythe, 1977). C. Ratings competition and tabloidism on news topics and agenda The phenomenon of merging news and entertainment is the result of market-driven journalism. The public's "interest", or the ratings number, decides what news agendas and topics should be. As audiences considered crime and health related stories to be the most interesting topics (Pew Research Center, 1996, 1998), this study did find that crime and health/welfare related stories were the top two topic categorizations in almost all programs, which is consistent with prior researches. As there are up to four 20/20 and five Dateline showings weekly, producers of news magazines are hard-pressed to find new subject matter. A lawsuit can offer all the elements of a made-for-TV drama, with suffering victims and big business playing the stereotypical villain (Stewart, 2001). Although the crime rates have actually decreased in the past few years, this study found that the percentage of crime stories dramatically increased in all programs (Media Monitor, 2000). For example, 48 Hours devoted all of their stories to crime topics. Also, Dateline showed over 38% of story in crime/court stories accompanied with audience on-line participation. Except for the crime stories, consumer alarm stories can also attract audience's attention and were another popular topic on Dateline and 20/20. News magazines might provide in-depth reporting and helpful information about consumer products, but they also regularly (as much as 40% of the time) report alarming stories unfairly (Jensen, et al, 1998). They stated that when it comes to consumer reporting, "If you scare them, they will watch" could be a slogan for news magazines shows. The same topics of car testing, insurance fraud, and doctors or diet drugs continuously appeared on 20/20, Dateline and MSNBC. For example, in the past three years over 50 stories related to car safety were found in the news magazines. However, news departments are just another program supplier that must compete for prime-time ratings against the enormous lobbying efforts of the Hollywood studios and the networks' own entertainment production companies. It is the network entertainment presidents who decide what type of programming will air in prime time. The fact is that the networks are entertainment companies (Consoli, 1998). That is not news; that is filler. If NBC found five more Seinfelds, there would be two or three fewer Datelines on the air (Zoglin, 1998) Everything on TV is based on the ability to deliver an audience that the advertisers want. News magazines are analyzed the same way as entertainment programming. Right now, an appetite is evident for this type of programming (Consoli, 1998). A prime time news magazine has no obligation to cover the "important" news; its goal is simply to win enough viewers to survive. Thus, these shows gravitate toward the same crowd-pleasing subjects: sex, crime, consumer rip-offs, health news, and human-interest weepers. Important, but more remote issues - the budget deficit, education policy, the workings of Congress - are either ignored or reduced to small-scale "people" stories (Zoglin, 1992). A news magazine like 60 Minutes tends to attract males with higher socioeconomic status. This is appealing to advertisers such as investment companies (Merrill Lynch, for example) and luxury car companies (Weintraub, 1998). So why don't Dateline and 20/20 devote their stories to hard news and thus attract the similar audiences and advertisers? As the Television Bureau of Advertising shows (2000), most of the television advertising is targeting general audiences and is related to food, supermarkets, personal care, home hardware, movies, automobiles, and telecommunication. Instead of competing for the niche audience with 60 Minutes, this study found that 20/20 and Dateline focused more on the general public and advertising. They might cover a few of the hard news stories, but most are related to crime and entertainment news. In addition to the preference of audiences and advertisers affecting the news agenda, both the traditional and tabloid news shows' producers rely heavily on outside groups for assistance (Paige, 1998). Both of them use free-lance field crews and it is not uncommon for those crews to alternate work between news magazines and tabloid shows (Dewerth-Pallmeyer and Hirsch, 1994). VII. Summary and Conclusion Compared with prior research, this study finds that the competition of the 12-hour prime time news magazines results in more tabloid story topics, especially in 48 Hours, 20/20 and Dateline. The story topic rankings between several news magazines were significantly similar, and those patterns were also found to be consistent with advertising and audience demographics. This indirectly supports the theory of audience commodity that networks use news content to attract certain "lifestyles" of audiences and sell them to the desired advertisers. However, in the 2000-2001 season, only 60 Minutes remained in top 15 weekly Nielsen ratings, and the others were the reality programs, game shows and several hit dramas and sitcoms. For example, seven of the top 15 ratings of 2000-2001 season are the reality shows such as Survivors II, Big Brother and CSI (CBS), and four copies of the game show Who Wants to a Millionaire (ABC). With the re-emergence of drama and reality TV craze hitting it big in the 2000 season, the number of hours devoted to news magazines has shrunk to 9-hours weekly. But news magazine staffs have remained largely intact, leaving the news divisions ready and willing to lend a hand if need be (Flint, 2000). The phenomenon is consistent with what Don Hewitt, 60 Minutes executive producer, said that behind every news magazine, there is a failed sitcom and if that sitcom hadn't failed, that news magazine would not be there. Now networks find that reality and game shows are more easily to produce and attract desired audiences, so the number of television news magazines programs reduced. The decreasing of news magazine programs is not because few good news stories are available, but simply because there are other substitutions can perform better in attracting audience and advertising than news magazines. This study included all news magazine programs of broadcast, cable and syndicated and coded eight weeks of programming. For those weekday programs, like CNN News Stand or Inside Edition, they generated 40 programs and over 120 stories, which is sufficient to represent the population. However, for the weekly programs, like 60 Minutes or 48 Hours, the eight programs and 24 stories included might not completely represent the population as they should because the errors in each story could have a significant effect. In addition, the data of audiences came from the Simmons Market Research. The percentages of audience demographics in different programs were found, but their relationships with programs were unknown. If we could also do a survey from the perspective of audiences, we could understand what rationales are used by audiences to choose among the different news magazines, and then conduct more complicated measurement between variables. For example, we may ask: what characteristics of news stories attract various audiences? What are their "lifestyles" in terms of advertising categories? And we could apply regression model or factor analysis to test other specific hypotheses. VIII. Tables Table 1. News magazine ratings, 30 second advertising cost, and total revenues in 1999 Program Launch Year Conglomerate Ownership Rating Advertising Cost Per 30 second Total Revenues ($ in millions) Network 60 Minutes 1968 Viacom (CBS ) 13.2 $ 240,000 $ 101.7M 60 Minutes II 1999 9.5 $ 196,000 $ 70.0M 48 Hours 1988 8.1 $ 80,000 $ 35.0M 20/20 1978 Disney (ABC) 10.6 $ 130,000 ($85,000-$160,000) $ 231.6M Dateline 1992 GE (NBC) 8.7 $ 110,000 ($89,000-$138,000) $ 314.4M Cancelled show West 57th With Connie Chung Public Eye to Eye Day One Turning Point Prime Time Live With Jane Pauley With Tom Brokaw With Maria Shriver Front Page 1986-89 1989-95 1997-97 1992-95 1989-97 1989-98 1991-92 1992-92 1992-92 1993-94 Viacom (CBS) Viacom (CBS) Viacom (CBS) Disney (ABC) Disney (ABC) Disney (ABC) GE (NBC) GE (NBC) GE (NBC) News (FOX) 6.0 7.5 6.0 7.0 7.5 8.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 5.0 ($60,000-$160,000) ($20.0M - $80.0M) Cable CNN News Stand 1998 AOL/Time Warner 0.5 $ 10,000 $ 30.0M CNN with Time 1998 AOL/Time Warner 0.5 $ 10,000 $ 10.0M MSNBC Weekend Magazine 1998 GE(MSNBC) /Microsoft 0.2 $ 8,000 $ 8.0M Syndication Entertainment Tonight 1981 Viacom 5.7 $ 112,000 $ 50.1M Inside Edition 1988 Viacom 3.3 $ 23,000 $ 14.1M Extra 1994 AOL/Time Warner 3.7 $ 67,000 $ 65.8M Access Hollywood 1996 News (FOX)/NBC 3.5 $ 34,000 $ 40.0M Cancelled show National Enquirer Free Speech 1999 1999 Nat'l Enquire/MGM USA Cable 2.0 1.0 ($5,000-$10,000) ($5.0M - $10.0M) End show Hard Copy American Journal A Current Affair 1989-98 1993-98 1987-97 Viacom Viacom News (FOX) 5.0-2.0 3.0-2.0 3.5-2.0 ($10,000-$50,000) ($10.0M - $ 50.0M) Note: Figures from September 1998 through May 1999. Source: 1. The ratings for end show of network news magazines compiled from "Electron magazines" of Spragens (1995). 2. Total revenue: Hollywood Reporter Guide to the Television Season, September 1999. 3. Syndication revenues and spots: Advertising Age, 71 (3): January 17,2000 A Content Analysis of Television News Magazine Commodification and Public Interest Table 2. The ratings/shares and ranking trend of network news magazines (1992 - 2000) Rating 60 Minutes 60 Minutes II 48 Hours 20/20 Prime Time Live Dateline 1999 - 2000 12.3/21 8.9/14 7.4/12 9.0/15 9.6/17-8.4/14 - 8.6/14 9.4/16-7.1/12 1998 - 1999 13.4/22 8.9/14 7.6/13 9.8/17 10.1/17-7.5/11 - 9.5/16 9.9/16-7.5/12 1997 - 1998 14.1/23 - 8.1/13 10.2/18 11.2/21-8.9/15 10.7/18 10.2/17 11.7/20-8.2/13 1996 - 1997 13.7/23 - 7.2/12 12.4/23 12.0/21 10.2/17 11.4/19-8.5/13 1995 - 1996 14.5/25 - 7.4/12 14.2/26 12.4/22 11.1/18 11.8/20-10.5-18 1994 - 1995 17.6/29 - 9.1/15 13.9/25 11.2/19 11.1/18 11.5/19-10.5/16 1993 - 1994 20.7/32 - 11.5/19 13.9/25 13.9/24 10.4/17 1992 - 1993 22.7/36 - 13.5/23 15.6/29 14.0/24 10.5/18 Ranking Weekly 60 Minutes 60 Minutes II 48 Hours 20/20 Prime Time Live Dateline 1999 - 2000 5 ~ 15 25 ~ 40 35 ~ 65 5 ~ 40 - 15 ~ 60 1998 - 1999 5 ~ 15 20 ~ 45 35 ~ 65 10 ~ 50 - 10 ~ 60 1997 - 1998 5 ~ 15 - 35 ~ 65 10 ~ 50 20 ~ 40 10 ~ 70 1996 - 1997 5 ~ 15 - 50 ~ 80 10 ~ 20 20 ~ 35 15 ~ 60 1995 - 1996 5 ~ 15 - 50 ~ 70 5 ~ 20 15 ~ 35 15 ~ 50 1994 - 1995 3 ~ 10 - 35 ~ 60 10 ~ 30 15 ~ 55 30 ~ 70 1993 - 1994 1 ~ 5 - 25 ~ 55 10 ~ 30 15 ~ 35 35 ~ 60 1992 - 1993 1 ~ 3 - 20 ~ 40 5 ~ 20 10 ~ 35 45 ~ 65 Source: Data complied by author from weekly issues of Broadcasting and Cable, October - April, 1992 - 2000 A Content Analysis of Television News Magazine Commodification and Public Interest Table 3. Trends of news magazine and network prime time advertising cost of a 30-second spot (1992 - 2000) Program 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 60 Minutes $235,000 $240,000 $240,000 $165,000 $160,000 $205,000 $225,000 $210,000 $220,000 60 Minutes II $160,000 $196,000 - - - - - - - 48 Hours $120,000 $ 90,000 $ 80,000 $ 70,000 $ 80,000 $100,000 $140,000 $150,000 $135,000 20/20* (mean) $126,700 $128,000 $128,300 $143,300 $182,500 $202,500 $145,000 $145,000 $107,500 $100,000 $150,000 $130,000 - $119,000 $160,000 $ 85,000 $148,000 $ 90,000 $160,000 $135,000 - $100,000 $160,000 $170,000 - $170,000 $195,000 - - $210,000 $195,000 - - $140,000 $150,000 - - $130,000 $160,000 - - $ 95,000 $120,000 - - Dateline (mean) $133,300 $112,200 $110,000 $118,800 $123,300 $116,700 $105,000 $100,000 $105,000 $ 65,000 $155,000 $120,000 - - $ 89,000 $128,000 $138,000 $101,000 $100,000 $110,000 $115,000 $130,000 $ 90,000 $105,000 $100,000 $115,000 $140,000 $120,000 - $110,000 $150,000 $110,000 - - $140,000 $110,000 $100,000 - - $105,000 $105,000 $105,000 - - $100,000 - - - - $105,000 - - - - CBS Maximum Minimum Mean S.D. $460,000 $ 90,000 $204,600 $ 91,400 $312,000 $ 82,000 $167,600 $ 63,700 $275,000 $ 70,000 $128,100 $ 52,000 $260,000 $ 70,000 $151,300 $ 47,600 $300,000 $ 60,000 $146,800 $ 76,800 $335,000 $ 90,000 $170,800 $ 70,400 $290,000 $ 75,000 $148,100 $ 51,800 $250,000 $ 80,000 $137,800 $ 41,400 $310,000 $ 55,000 $135,800 $ 61,200 ABC Maximum Minimum Mean S.D. $360,000 $ 70,000 $199,800 $ 85,600 $380,000 $ 75,000 $173,500 $ 85,900 $375,000 $ 60,000 $173,800 $ 84,800 $360,000 $ 55,000 $168,800 $ 82,100 $450,000 $ 65,000 $185,600 $ 96,000 $475,000 $ 80,000 $201,000 $103,100 $350,000 $ 80,000 $155,200 $ 71,400 $300,000 $ 65,000 $142,700 $ 73,100 $290,000 $ 55,000 $135,200 $ 62,100 NBC Maximum Minimum Mean S.D. $620,000 $ 65,000 $228,300 $159,100 $545,000 $ 89,000 $196,100 $132,500 $565,000 $ 75,000 $183,400 $126,500 $575,000 $ 90,000 $197,500 $129,100 $550,000 $ 80,000 $204,800 $124,600 $490,000 $ 90,000 $196,800 $109,500 $390,000 $ 75,000 $152,300 $ 71,400 $295,000 $ 65,000 $118,100 $ 52,100 $300,000 $ 50,000 $133,300 $ 54,600 Note: *20/20 includes the advertising cost of Prime Time Live before 1998. Source: Data complied by author from annual report of Advertising Age, September, 1992-2000. A Content Analysis of Television News Magazine Commodification and Public Interest Table 4. Categorization of news topics based on the "number" of stories Broadcasting Network Cable Syndication CBS ABC NBC MSNBC CNN Viacom Viacom TW Program 60 Minutes 60 Minutes II 48 Hours CBS Total 20/20 Dateline Weekend Magazine CNN with Time CNN News Stand E.T. Inside Edition Extra # of Stories (1243) 21 21 7 49 87 73 46 29 226 290 201 242 Politics/Government 9.5% 4.8% 0% 4.8% 6.9% 2.7% 0% 10.3% 8.4% 0% 0.5% 0% Economics/Business 4.8% 9.5% 0% 4.8% 0% 0% 0% 3.4% 24.8% 0% 0.5% 0.4% Foreign/Diplomacy 19.0% 4.8% 0% 7.9% 0% 0% 0% 10.3% 2.2% 0% 0% 0% War/Defense 0% 4.8% 0% 1.6% 0% 0% 0% 3.4% 4.0% 0% 0% 0% Social conflict 9.5% 19.0% 0% 9.5% 2.3% 1.4% 2.2% 10.3% 4.4% 0% 0.5% 0.8% Education 4.8% 0% 0% 1.6% 4.6% 1.4% 8.7% 3.4% 3.5% 0% 1.5% 0% Health/Welfare 14.3% 14.3% 0% 9.5% 9.2% 8.2% 13.0% 20.7% 3.1% 0% 2.0% 1.7% Science/Technology 4.8% 4.8% 0% 3.2% 0% 6.8% 8.7% 3.4% 8.0% 0% 1.0% 0.8% Art/Culture 14.3% 4.8% 0% 6.3% 0% 0% 0% 10.3% 3.5% 0% 0% 0% Elite Interest Sub total 81% 66.7% 0.0% 49.2% 23.0% 20.5% 32.6% 75.9% 61.9% 0.0% 6.0% 3.7% Crime/Court 19.0% 19.0% 100% 46.0% 26.4% 30.1% 19.6% 6.9% 5.3% 5.5% 21.4% 20.7% Scandal 0% 4.8% 0% 1.6% 12.6% 4.1% 0% 6.9% 0.4% 16.6% 20.9% 20.7% Accident/Disaster 0% 4.8% 0% 1.6% 5.7% 16.4% 13.0% 6.9% 15.5% 1.4% 11.9% 7.0% Consumer Alert 0% 0% 0% 0% 9.2% 13.7% 10.9% 0% 0% 0% 0.5% 1.2% Entertainment/Sport 0% 0% 0% 0% 10.3% 9.6% 4.3% 0% 16.8% 75.5% 30.3% 32.6% Human interest/Myt 0% 4.8% 0% 1.6% 12.6% 5.5% 19.6% 3.4% 0% 1.0% 9.0% 14.0% General Interest Sub total 19.0% 33.3% 100% 50.8% 77.0% 79.5% 67.4% 24.1% 38.1% 100.0% 94.0% 96.3% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Niche Breadth 7.23 8.32 1.00 4.05 7.13 6.13 7.15 9.45 7.28 1.66 4.89 4.60 Table 5 Spearman's rho correlation of story topic categorization based on the number of stories 60 Minutes 60 Minutes II 48 Hours 20/20 Dateline MSNBC Weekend magazine CNN & Time CNN News Stand E.T. Inside Edition Extra 60 Minutes -- 60 Minutes II .556* (.031) -- 48 Hours .418 (.121) .438 (.102) -- 20/20 -.216 (.440) -.016 (.955) .442 (.099) -- Dateline -.216 (.440) -.049 (.862) .437 (.103) .725** (.002) -- MSNBC Magazine -.089 (.751) .074 (.794) .416 (.123) .580* (.023) .795** (.000) -- CNN & Time .715** (.003) .609* (.016) .064 (.821) -.114 (.686) -.217 (.437) -.184 (.511) -- CNN Newsstand .040 (.887) .183 (.513) .124 (.660) -.248 (.372) .054 (.848) -.151 (.591) -.089 (.753) -- E.T. -.381 (.161) -.086 (.761) .368 (.177) .727** (.002) .580* (.023) .333 (.226) -.245 (.379) .112 (.692) -- Inside Edition -.292 (.290) -.024 (.933) .376 (.167) .800** (.000) .765** (.001) .611* (.016) -.236 (.397) .149 (.595) .846** (.000) -- Extra -.355 (.194) .081 (.773) .347 (.205) .798** (.000) .776** (.001) .580* (.023) -.257 (.355) .004 (.990) .850** (.000) .881** (.000) -- *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). A Content Analysis of Television News Magazine Commodification and Public Interest Table 6. Percentage of advertising categorization in television news magazines Broadcasting Network Cable Syndication CBS ABC NBC MSNBC CNN Viacom Viacom TW Program 60 Minutes 60 Minutes II 48 Hours CBS Total 20/20 Dateline Weekend Magazine CNN with Time CNN News Stand E.T. Inside Edition Extra Average # of nat'l 30 second spot 22.9 21.2 23.9 22.7 23.6 24.8 27.2 22.7 24.2 15.4 13.6 15.8 Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% General 13.0% 15.1% 41.4% 23.8% 34.3% 39.2% 16.5% 8.3% 9.7% 59.3% 53.0% 33.7% Food/Restaurant 2.4% 1.4% 8.7% 4.6% 10.9% 12.7% 2.9% 3.3% 1.1% 23.6% 17.2% 11.7% Home hardware 1.6% 2.0% 9.0% 4.3% 6.2% 6.6% 1.8% 1.1% 1.0% 18.2% 12.4% 6.4% Apparel 0.6% 0.3% 7.8% 3.0% 5.0% 5.0% 0% 0% 0% 3.7% 1.7% 5.3% Personal Care 1.2% 3.3% 3.9% 2.8% 4.5% 5.2% 1.2% 0% 0% 5.3% 6.2% 5.1% Medicine/Health 7.2% 7.4% 10.2% 8.3% 6.4% 6.0% 8.0% 3.9% 3.2% 3.5% 11.3% 3.5% Movie/Video/Media 0% 0.7% 1.8% 0.8% 3.8% 3.7% 2.6% 0% 4.4% 5.0% 4.2% 2.7% High-Tech 27.1% 30.0% 19.5% 25.2% 28.8% 28.3% 50.4% 35.6% 50.4% 29.4% 19.0% 25.2% Electronics 5.6% 2.0% 2.7% 3.5% 1.9% 3.0% 2.0% 1.7% 1.5% 5.8% 8.5% 4.8% Automotive 8.0% 11.2% 5.1% 8.1% 8.7% 9.0% 14.1% 10.5% 6.0% 14.1% 15.8% 8.2% Telecommunication 1.9% 3.3% 6.0% 3.3% 4.6% 4.9% 2.1% 6.9% 5.7% 8.4% 2.1% 4.1% Computer/On-line 11.6% 13.5% 5.7% 10.0% 13.6% 11.4% 32.2% 19.5% 37.2% 1.1% 0% 1.9% Financial/Resort 37.0% 28.0% 13.5% 25.9% 12.3% 9.0% 16.6% 40.6% 32.4% 2.4% 4.2% 0.8% Financial service 27.5% 19.5% 10.8% 19.1% 8.7% 5.3% 10.6% 22.0% 18.2% 1.6% 2.8% 0.3% Express mail 6.6% 4.4% 1.8% 4.2% 2.7% 2.3% 2.3% 3.3% 2.8% 0% 0% 0% Travel/Resorts 1.6% 1.4% 0.3% 0.7% 0.8% 0.7% 3.7% 13.2% 8.8% 0.8% 1.6% 0% Jewelry/Watch 1.3% 1.7% 0.6% 0.8% 1.1% 0.7% 0% 2.1% 2.3% 0% 0% 0.5% Gov. & Org. 2.0% 2.0% 1.5% 1.6% 2.0% 0.9% 0% 0% 0.1% 1.5% 0.8% 1.8% Others 1.5% 2.8% 3.0% 1.8% 3.8% 1.0% 1.0% 2.9% 2.4% 4.6% 2.1% 31.1% Promotion 19.4% 22.5% 21.5% 21.1% 20.9% 21.6% 15.7% 12.7% 5.0% 2.8% 13.5% 12.6% Network/Local 18.4% 20.5% 20.9% 19.9% 17.0% 18.0% 15.4% 8.8% 4.3% 2.5% 9.0% 8.0% Program AD 1.0% 2.0% 0.6% 1.2% 3.9% 3.6% 0.3% 3.9% 0.7% 0.3% 4.5% 4.6% Niche Breadth 6.92 7.76 9.92 8.93 11.01 10.83 5.89 7.65 5.16 7.67 9.27 7.05 Table 7 Spearman's rho correlation of story topics categorization based on number of stories 60 Minutes 60 Minutes II 48 Hours 20/20 Dateline MSNBC Weekend magazine CNN & Time CNN News Stand E.T. Inside Edition Extra 60 Minutes -- 60 Minutes II .842** (.000) -- 48 Hours .333 (.208) .374 (.154) -- 20/20 .386 (.140) .417 (.108) .825** (.000) -- Dateline .306 (.250) .378 (.149) .811** (.000) .954** (.000) -- MSNBC Magazine 652** (.006) .548* (.028) .347 (.188) .558* (.025) .561* (.024) -- CNN & Time .765** (.001) .654** (.006) .269 (.313) .311 (.242) .264 (.324) .777** (.000) -- CNN Newsstand .623** (.010) .514* (.042) .032 (.905) .190 (.481) .112 (.680) .807** (.000) .855** (.000) -- E.T. -.159 (.556) -.106 (.695) .491 (.053) .456 (.076) .572* (.021) .049 (.858) -.207 (.441) -.267 (.318) -- Inside Edition -.016 (.952) .007 (.980) .557* (.025) .478 (.061) .607* (.013) .258 (.335) -.072 (.790) -.167 (.537) .863** (.000) -- Extra -.229 (.294) -.153 (.572) .518* (.040) .524 (.037) .641* (.007) -.063 (.815) -.309 (.244) -.448 (.082) .892** (.000) .775** (.000) -- *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). A Content Analysis of Television News Magazine Commodification and Public Interest Table 8. Advertising in television Network Cable Spot TV Syndication Food/Restaurant/Beverage/Beer 23.1% 18.2% 16.8% 26.1% Home hardware 8.3% 11.6% 3.0% 10.8% Apparel/Shoes 2.4% 3.0% 0.5% 1.3% Personal Care 8.6% 5.9% 1.5% 11.6% Medicine/Health 9.4% 6.6% 1.6% 12.6% Movie/Video/Media 5.4% 4.8% 4.4% 5.5% Electronics 1.8% 2.8% 0.7% 2.6% Automotive 14.8% 10.0% 24.8% 6.4% Telecommunication 3.9% 5.5% 4.3% 7.8% Computer and Software 2.7% 3.1% 0.8% 0.8% Financial and Insurance 5.6% 8.4% 6.2% 3.1% Jewelry and Watch 0.2% 0.2% 0.1% 0.3% Travel/Resorts 0.9% 2.6% 2.8% 0.7% Government and Organization 1.1% 0.9% 4.6% 0.4% Retail 7.0% 5.6% 17.6% 4.2% Local service and amusement 0.2% 2.2% 6.7% 1.6% Others 4.8% 8.9% 4.2% 4.2% Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% Note: 1. The total advertising here does not include Network/Local programming promotion, so the percentage of each category is around 20% more than the content analysis of advertising. 2. Retail includes Wal-Mart, Kmart, Home Depot, Best Buy, Circuit City, J.C. Penney, and Sears, which are included in Home hardware, Electronics, and Apparel in the content analysis of advertising. Source: Advertising Age, September 4, 1999. A Content Analysis of Television News Magazine Commodification and Public Interest Table 9. Percentage of Audience Demographics in terms of age, sex, education, occupation, and income Broadcasting Network Cable Syndication CBS ABC NBC MSNBC CNN Viacom Viacom TW Survey Population 60 Minutes 48 Hours 20/20 Dateline News Network CNN with Time CNN Prime News E.T. Inside Edition Extra Age 18-34 33.1% 100 13.6% 41 22.7% 69 23.4% 71 28.5% 86 44.3% 133 27.8% 84 19.7% 59 30.9% 93 31.5% 95 40.3% 122 35-49 31.9% 100 25.2% 79 32.3% 101 35.2% 110 32.1% 100 30.1% 94 24.4% 76 34.2% 107 34.6% 109 30.7% 96 34.9% 109 50+ 35.0% 100 61.2% 175 45.0% 129 41.4% 118 39.0% 111 25.7% 74 47.7% 137 45.3% 130 33.6% 96 37.9% 108 24.8% 71 Sex Male 47.9% 100 46.7% 97 50.1% 105 45.1% 94 43.8% 92 48.5% 101 54.8% 114 53.8% 112 41.0% 86 38.7% 81 46.2% 96 Female 52.1% 100 53.4% 102 49.9% 96 54.9% 105 56.2% 108 51.5% 99 45.2% 87 46.2% 89 59.0% 113 61.3% 118 53.8% 103 Education High School 58.9% 100 57.1% 97 64.3% 109 59.7% 101 59.4% 101 56.6% 96 51.0% 86 48.9% 83 57.9% 98 61.2% 104 61.6% 105 College 1-3 19.8% 100 19.8% 100 17.9% 90 19.1% 97 20.8% 105 21.8% 110 19.6% 99 23.2% 117 21.6% 109 24.3% 122 21.4% 108 College graduate 21.3% 100 23.1% 109 17.7% 83 21.2% 100 19.9% 94 21.6% 102 29.4% 138 27.9% 131 20.5% 96 14.5% 68 17.0% 80 Occupation Professional/Manager 18.3% 100 18.9% 103 16.3% 89 19.1% 104 17.7% 97 18.3% 100 20.4% 112 23.9% 130 19.8% 108 10.8% 59 15.9% 86 Technical/Clerical/ Sale 19.0% 100 14.0% 74 17.9% 94 19.2% 101 19.9% 105 22.7% 119 19.3% 101 16.8% 88 23.9% 126 19.3% 101 17.0% 89 Labor worker 24.7% 100 15.1% 60 19.0% 77 19.8% 80 19.6% 79 25.9% 105 19.4% 76 21.2% 86 20.2% 82 21.2% 86 27.2% 110 Unemployment or homemaker 13.3% 100 10.4% 78 13.2% 99 13.9% 104 15.9% 119 11.3% 85 7.7% 58 9.7% 76 16.7% 125 19.2% 144 18.2% 136 Retired 17.8% 100 35.9% 202 26.5% 149 21.4% 120 20.0% 113 14.5% 82 24.1% 136 23.3% 131 12.4% 70 22.8% 128 13.6% 76 Individual Income $40,000 and more 14.2% 100 15.1% 106 12.8% 90 15.8% 111 13.9% 97 13.6% 96 18.5% 130 20.2% 142 14.0% 97 8.2% 58 10.9% 76 $15,000-$39,999 29.3% 100 22.3% 76 25.3% 86 26.8% 91 27.2% 93 30.1% 103 25.1% 86 28.1% 96 28.7% 98 25.6% 88 29.9% 102 $14,999 and less 19.7% 100 11.8% 60 16.4% 83 16.8% 85 17.8% 90 23.6% 120 16.4% 83 14.1% 71 21.3% 108 18.2% 92 24.0% 122 Note: 1. 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