NEW YORK -- The dominance of CNN's "Moneyline with Lou Dobbs" over CNBC's "Business Center" has been clear in the 11 weeks since the latter's Oct. 14 launch, according to Nielsen numbers released last week.
But "Moneyline's' comfortable lead may be in jeopardy, say industry observers, with CNBC making strides in overall audience share growth.
Nielsen Media Research data shows that the 17-year-old "Moneyline" scored an average 0.6 rating for the past 11 weeks in the 73 million homes it reaches, equivalent to 400,000 households. While those figures basically triple "Business Center's" 0.2 rating in its 64 million homes, equivalent to 129,000 house-holds, CNBC's overall growth could be a sign of trouble for CNN.
"It's interesting to us that three years ago, CNN barely acknowledged our existence, and today they are bragging about beating a half-hour show that's been on the air for three months," said CNBC spokesman George Jamison.
Strong biz coverage
CNBC honchos point to the strong performance of their 5:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. live biz coverage. From the first quarter of 1995 to fourth quarter 1997, CNBC's household average for that period shot up from 114,000 to 213,000 homes.
For the same daypart, during the same 3-year period, CNN saw a decrease from 1.2 million to 320,000 in its household average. A CNN re-searcher pointed out that the O.J. Simpson trial was airing during first quarter 1995 and contributed to "higher than average" ratings.
Another trouble area for the CNN brand, is that CNNfn (CNN's 24-hour financial news spin-off) has not yet offered much of a challenge to CNBC's biz programming day, still in only an estimated 8 million homes.
'Moneyline' builds on lead-in
"Moneyline" continues to build on its lead-in, however, delivering an audience share 35% larger than "World View," the program that precedes it. Since its debut with anchors Maria Bartiromo and Tyler Mathisen, "Business Center" has delivered an average audience share 24% smaller than its lead-in, "The Edge," as CNN spokesman Howard Polskin pointed out.
"In the last five weeks, 'Moneyline's' ratings have remained robust, averaging a 0.6 rating," Polskin said. "During that time, 'Business Center' has averaged a 0.1, tying for CNBC's lowest rated show."
CNBC's spokesman could neither confirm nor deny that statement, but emphasized that a "truer picture of what's going on for both of us would include more than a half-hour slice of the day."
A mixed bag
Indeed, Nielsen research on total day and primetime performances (1997 vs. 1996) for both cablers were a mixed bag. CNN's total day rating remained even in the last year, while CNBC's showed a total day ratings increase of 50% (from 0.2 to 0.3) over last year. In the primetime arena, CNN showed a 13% increase in ratings (from 0.8 to 0.9), while CNBC saw a decline of 20% (from 0.5 to 0.4).
Both networks are expected to an-nounce scheduling changes in January -- CNN's announcement is expected as early as Jan. 7.
While CNN claimed in a recent press release that "Moneyline" is the most popular and longest-running daily biz show on "network television," and CNBC is quick to call itself "the world leader in business news," the two cablers are ignoring a fairly big point in the nightly biz news race, according to Linda O'Bryon, exec editor of PBS's "Nightly Business Report."
"We are now entering our 20th year with 'Nightly Business Report,' and our ratings (1.2 rating) are consistently higher than the ratings of the two cable shows -- combined," O'Bryon told Daily Variety.
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