NewsNation wants its viewers to know the cable-news outlet is keeping an eye on them, no matter how complex the headlines may get in the weeks ahead.
The Nexstar-backed network is making a slight tweak to its slogan that it thinks carries outsize meaning. Starting Monday, NewsNation will tout itself as delivering “News For all Americans” instead of “News for All America.” As Thanksgiving approaches, the network hopes to emphasize that welcomes everyone to its screens, not just viewers who may have partisan leanings.
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“I think that’s the foundation, hearing from the people,” says Cherie Grzech, president and managing editor of news and politics for the network, which relaunched as NewsNation in 2020 after operating for years as WGN America, based on the Chicago superstation. In months to come, she says, expect producers to “look for ways both in series and in potential town halls that will allow us to hear first and foremost from people versus the politicians or the parties,” getting takes on what the most important issues are and reactions and feedback to policies being put into practice. Brian Entin, a senior national correspondent, spent weeks traveling across I-80 and nine different states, showing how individual voters and groups are more complex than simple “red” or “blue” labels.
NewsNation’s overall audience remains noticeably smaller compared to more established rivals such as Fox News Channel and MSNBC, but executives continue to see a chance to grow audience, and think they’ve been able to seize notice over the course of the 2024 election cycle. NewsNation’s total-day viewership rose nearly 10% in the third quarter compared to the second, while its viewership among adults between 25 and 34 was up nearly 20% over the same time period. Two of the network’s evening shows, hours led by Chris Cuomo and Ashleigh Banfield, have seen audience counts grow in recent months.
Now, all the network must do is build on it — not necessarily an easy task.
Subscribers to NewsNation are projected to fall almost 7.3% in 2024, according to data from Kagan, a market-research unit of S&P Global Intelligence, as more traditional cable viewers cut the cord in favoro of streaming. The company sees total NewsNation subscribers falling to 62.6 million in 2024 from 67.5 million last year. NewsNation says it is in “in 92% of all subscribing homes” and has more than 64 million subscribers, citing data from Nielsen.
NewsNation raised some eyebrows earlier this month when it was the first to call the presidential race for Donald Trump. NewsNation relied on Decision Desk HQ, a voting-analysis firm that has moved away from the exit polls upon which many mainstream news outlets count in favor of forecasting built on demographic trends, turnout estimates and other kinds of data.
“I think we made a decision that we were going to trust them, and we did our homework prior to that night,” says Grzech. “We allowed them to make the calls.”
Still, it’s clear executives liked the alliance. Bill Sammon, a former senior editorial executive at Fox News Channel who served as a liaison between NewsNation and Decision Desk HQ, was recently named a senior vice president at Nexstar Media, where he will oversee news coverage of the nation’s capital for both the cable network and its sibling The Hill. Sammon, left Fox News in 2021 after the outlet came under scrutiny for making an early but accurate call for President Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election.
The call “does elevate our profile and it gives us some market distinction in terms of the lawmakers and decision makers we are trying to book,” says Chris Stirewalt, the political analyst who hosts “The Hill Sunday” on the network.
The race call was the most recent of what Sean Compton, Nexstar’s president of network, says is a series of “seizing moments” that include a Republican party primary debate late last year as well as a town hall with soon-to-be Vice President J.D. Vance. “It sure creates more sampling and awareness for the network,” he says, and he expects NewsNation to do more of the same in 2025.
Road trips by correspondents, town halls and alliances with voter-analysis organizations cost money, but Compton says NewsNation “has been profitable since Day One.” Nexstar does not break out results for the network in its quarterly reports to Wall Street.
The executive recognizes that NewsNation has more steps to tread. “The reality is we are a toddler. We are only a couple of years old,” he says. But Election Night, he says, offers a chance to bring new viewers to the fold. “We had a good Election Night, and if it has gotten better, I don’ t want to curse the damn thing.”
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