Last week it was announced by much fanfare at Fox News and MSNBC that CNN had finished in third place behind the other news networks for the month of March. How is possible that the founder and brand leader for broadcast news had diminished so much in the market?

I believe that this is a result of a broad sociological change in the United States that has dramatically shifted the marketplace towards polarized political stances, ocurring in part to due voter redistricting, as explained in this Economist article from 2002. This broad shift has subsequently led consumers to prefer opinionated and almost ‘biased’ news, which first led to the rise of Fox News, and later of MSNBC. As a result, media like CNN that are less opinionated and run the middle road become the ‘alternative’ in the marketplace and risk losing audience.

Personally, I am not a constant viewer of any of these three networks, but I do find CNN’s GPS with Fareed Zakaria to be an excellent program that always provides a distinct and serious look at current news topics. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a fresh perspective.