Do News Audiences Really Know What They Like?
Jeff Bezos thinks the key to revitalizing the Washington Post is to follow the data and give the newspaper's audience more of what it already prefers. Does that always work?
Publication Note: Last week I had a piece in The Conversation about the first American hockey player to win both a medal at the Olympics and the Stanley Cup. In the 1920s, he was a celebrated star athlete - he was the flag bearer for the U.S. team at the first Winter Olympic Games in 1924. His story is fascinating, and I explain why he’s almost entirely erased from both public memory and Olympic commemorations in the article.
The CEO and Publisher of the Washington Post resigned with a terse note last Saturday night. Will Lewis will likely be most remembered for his disastrous tenure at the helm of the once-great newspaper and media empire. Lewis was caught partying at the Super Bowl in San Francisco only days after approximately 40% of the Washington Post newsroom was fired and the Sports section was shuttered. When you badly embarrass a famous institution, and your boss, you’ll soon be looking for a new job.
I’m not sure I recall another leader of major news organizations with such a disastrous career record. I’m surprised more critics - aside from the always reliable David Folkenflik at NPR - haven’t contextualized Lewis’s record at the Washington Post by reference to his earlier tenures at News International (publisher of News of the World) in the United Kingdom and at the Wall Street Journal. As General Manager of Murdoch’s News International, Lewis played a key role in the cover-up of the phone hacking scandal that led to the sudden demise of News of the World. 200 journalists lost their jobs at the newspaper when it closed in 2011. As for the Wall Street Journal’s digital transition (the most-important job Lewis was tasked with), it accelerated once Lewis left:
Some of Lewis’s failings aren’t entirely his fault. Jeff Bezos, for example, pulled the planned Kamala Harris endorsement that led to hundreds of thousands of subscription cancellations in 2024. But for now, Lewis appears to be one of the most-famous examples of failing upwards in the media industry. How he continually persuaded some of the world’s richest media moguls (like Rupert Murdoch and Jeff Bezos) to give him executive authority remains a mystery. Was it his handsome looks? His British accent? His rhetorical fluency? His career reminds me of Donald Trump’s favorite hiring requirement; Lewis does, in fact, look like a modern media CEO direct “from central casting.”
Lewis (in)famously told the Post newsroom, upon assuming leadership in 2024, that “People are not reading your stuff… I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.” His statement reminded me of what Bari Weiss told CBS News employees during her “reset” talk (“vision for the future of CBS News”) last month. “We are not producing a product that enough people want,” Weiss explained. “We are not doing enough to meet audiences where they are… so, they are leaving us.”
In both cases, the factual basis of these assertions can be questioned. Millions of paying subscribers (digital+print) still purchase the Post, and the audiences for CBS News products like the Evening News and “60 Minutes” are far larger than anything cable TV news can assemble. Millions of Americans continue to “want” these news products, but in their respective categories [national newspapers and network television], these products are clearly underperforming in comparison to their chief rivals (and to their historic record).
In the Washington Post’s case, one can look at the trend line of the success of the newspaper in President Trump’s first term and argue that had the Post approached Trump’s second administration as it approached the first, it would’ve been well-positioned for a return to profitability and relevance. Here’s Nate Silver essentially making that case, for example.
Silver’s comparison is the New York Times. The Times has notably changed very little in either its editorial line or reportorial practices, and it’s consistently demonstrated strong growth in readership and subscription revenue. Unlike The Washington Post or CBS News, the Times leadership exploited and extended the value in their legacy brand. The Times has been accused of “audience capture” and centrist predictability, but such criticism has done little to inhibit the news product’s measurable growth. More news consumers want to pay for its product every quarter.
One can argue that the Times is an industry leader, whereas The Washington Post and CBS News have been categorical losers in their respective markets. They therefore have less room to grow and extend their legacy brands because audience desertion is speeding up. That’s fair, and there’s truth in that assertion. But when one examines mass audience response to political repositioning in journalistic/editorial practice, there exists plenty of historical evidence that making marginal (or radical) shifts can backfire and prove costly. In fact, standing pat (or leaning in to the legacy brand’s established value) often proves the more successful strategy. Examples abound:
Following President Nixon’s inauguration, in 1969 - 1970, third-place ABC News moved to a pro-Nixon, pro-Vietnam War position in search of the “silent majority” audience that wasn’t being served by the Huntley-Brinkley or Cronkite newscasts. The move failed quickly, as ABC News’s already terrible ratings plunged even further. It was (mostly) dropped by 1972.
CNN tried to revamp its approach and reposition itself politically under Chris Licht in 2022-2023. The network fired Don Lemon, Brian Stelter [since rehired], and White House reporter John Harwood, while raising the profile of right-wing pundits (like Scott Jennings) in an attempt to make the channel more Trump-friendly. In fairness to Licht, it was later revealed that much of this political repositioning was done at the command of Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zaslav. But the repositioning caused ratings and ad revenue to plummet. The decline was immediate, severe, and outpaced the general erosion in cable TV viewership. “CNN’s prime-time viewership of 494,000 in May [2023] was down 16% from April and was less than half of its closest news rival, MSNBC. It was down 25% from the average of 660,000 in May 2022,” noted David Bauder at the time of Licht’s firing (“CNN ousts CEO Chris Licht after a brief, tumultuous tenure” Associated Press, June 7, 2023). It’s safe to say that had Licht done nothing but maintained CNN’s established brand position, CNN’s viewership and advertising performance would have declined more slowly. He (and Zaslav) accelerated the cable news channel’s demise in relevance and viewership.
The Washington Post was profitable and growing during Trump’s first term, when it emphasized its tradition of independence and critical, investigative reporting (“Democracy Dies in Darkness”). It’s been a disaster since, but its downfall clearly accelerated with the decision to drop the Harris endorsement and signal a new political position. Hundreds of thousands of subscribers cancelled, exacerbating an already declining financial performance. The shift to become more MAGA-friendly has done nothing to improve the bottom line, and again - like CNN under Chris Licht - the Washington Post under Will Lewis would likely have been more successful had it done nothing but maintain its previous identity and brand position.
The essential question isn’t whether these news organizations should do “something” or “nothing.” It’s whether, and to what extent, they should exploit or reject their established brand identities and market positions. At both the Washington Post and CBS News, the notion that there was nothing to lose by making big changes when audience data revealed erosion might be proven very wrong soon. Mistaken changes can, in fact, accelerate decline rather than slow it. There’s even a word in German for this: verschlimmbesserung
There’s one major issue I see rarely addressed in the partisan repositioning of legacy media, and that concerns the oversaturation of right-leaning news products. Perpetual carping about “mainstram media” and “woke media” has obscured the development of universally available right-wing media over the last two decades. Viewers and news consumers seeking a conservative, or right-leaning, partisan political perspective in their news content can now select from a profusion of news outlets. On television, Nexstar (owner of News Nation) has pivoted more clearly towards MAGA in order to insure its merger with TGNA stations is approved, but right-wing TV viewers can also choose from Newsmax, Salem Media Group, One America News Network, Fox News, and Sinclair (I’m sure I’m leaving others out). On radio, the Clay Travis-Buck Sexton program has replaced Rush Limbaugh, and there exist numerous other right-wing local radio yakkers around the country (here in Maine we have “The Voice of Maine” network, which features Hannity, Levin and other right-wing pundits). Multiple right-wing, Trump-friendly podcasts (even beyond Joe Rogan) have been widely noted, with special attention to their influence in the 2024 election. Streamers and social media influencers with audiences in the millions include Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and others. The Washington Post and CBS News are late to the game if they’re seeking additional audience share from the news consumers selecting these outlets. The embedded distrust of their legacy brand identities also makes these content providers somewhat repellent to a large segment of this market share. And making a play for these news consumers risks alienating the Post’s and CBS’s core, loyal audience, which would accelerate decline faster than the current industry baseline.
This dilemma - whether to lean into the core audience, or seek growth with a new product or approach in a declining overall market - isn’t new in American business history (e.g. “New Coke”). But it’s slightly different in mass media, because of the intimacy and parasocial relationships that are built up with certain brands (actually: some consumers truly loved Coca Cola, too). An important question that’s perpetually arising in TV and show business is whether audiences actually know what they want. Jeff Bezos, in his statement after Lewis’s resignation, indicated he believes the question has been conclusively answered. “The Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity,” Bezos wrote. “Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus.” Bezos apparently believes algorithmic editorial decisionmaking will lead the Washington Post in a more successful direction.
I don’t entirely agree with Bezos. I believe audience metrics can only paint part of the picture of audience attraction. Audiences can tell you what they want in many different ways, but they can’t tell you anything about media content they have never encountered. You can’t properly measure the available audience, or audience growth, without taking into account the context(s) of creativity and innovation. I’m reminded of an old show business quote. I don’t know who said it first - the internet is no help - but here’s legendary TV executive Bob Wussler repeating it in a March, 1980, interview.
There’s an old saying in show business: The public doesn’t know what it likes, it likes what it knows.
Wussler’s talking about the implementation of cable television. In March, 1980, ESPN was less than a year old, and CNN was more than two months away from its debut. Wussler was involved in launching CNN, and his career as a legendary TV executive was filled with programming innovations. He began at CBS News, where he was a prodigy at directing breaking news. It’s sort of remarkable to realize that the TV news director calling the shots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention helped launch CNN just a decade later. In between, Wussler was named head of CBS Sports, where he hired Brett Musberger, Irv Cross, Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder and Phyllis George and put together “The NFL Today.” That show was an immediate hit. Less well-known is that Wussler patterned it after “The CBS Evening News.” Musberger played Cronkite (anchor), Jimmy the Greek was Eric Sevareid (analysis), and the show itself (news packages, interviews, updates, satellite feeds) offered a similar format. Some CBS News writers - Gary Paul Gates and John Mosedale, were two - even wrote scripts for Cronkite on weekdays and picked up extra pay writing scripts for Musberger on Sundays. Such innovative programming propelled Wussler’s career. He was made head of the CBS TV network at age 38, but then one of his programs caused a major problem with the F.C.C.*, and he was out less than two years later.
Wussler’s point - The public doesn’t know what it likes, it likes what it knows - has been proven and verified continually in media history. Nobody “wanted” 24-hour cable TV news before CNN, nor was “music television” guaranteed to entice viewers. Audiences didn’t really know what it was before MTV existed. How many publishers rejected “Harry Potter” and how many studios passed on “Star Wars”? A great example from U.S. TV is “All in the Family.” As Oscar Winberg’s new book Archie Bunker for President: How One TV Show Remade American Politics notes, “All in the Family” tested terribly with test audiences. Bill Paley and Jack Schneider, who ran CBS in 1971, had to be convinced to put it on the air (both disliked the show when they initially screened it). Yet it was the number one TV show on the U.S. airwaves for five consecutive years. Audiences loved it. Viewers had no idea before they saw “All in the Family” how much they would like it.
Here’s my unsolicited advice for legacy media executives trying to win during this period of devolution: Always keep in mind that even well-intentioned and thoughtful changes risk backfiring. Things can always get worse - in other words: Audience and revenue decline can be just as easily accelerated as arrested. The current floor can get lower more quickly than you suspect (e.g. Chris Licht at CNN). Identify and serve your most loyal audience, but also learn the specific viewers and news consumers that are currently being underserved who align with your intended brand and market position. Don’t chase news consumers that have numerous similar options and already disrespect your brand. Write them off. To attract the obtainable news consumer, try imaginative innovations unavailable elsewhere rather than mimicking competitors and looking imitative. You might fail, but you’ll look better for trying something new rather than pretending you’ve become something you’re brand signals you’re not. You also might succeed, too. In that case, you’ll earn credit for being a visionary and finding audiences that currently exist which nobody knew were available.
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*It was an all-star, high-stakes tennis tournament. CBS promoted it widely as “winner-take-all” but, in fact, the network paid secret appearance fees to top tennis stars to participate. When that deception was revealed, the network was charged by the F.C.C. with deceiving the public, and Wussler was out.