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NEWS > ENTERTAINMENT > MUMBAI TERRORIST ATTACKS DRAW RECORD RATINGS

MUMBAI TERRORIST ATTACKS DRAW RECORD RATINGS

November 30 2008

Mumbai, India – With the terrorist attacks in Mumbai now ended, Indian officials are being left with the aftermath. With nearly 200 people dead, hundreds more injured, and a nation on the edge, the Indian government is being charged with one of the most difficult tasks of recent years. No such problems though burden news services and websites that have been covering the attacks, all of whom have enjoyed a significant uptick in traffic, a major relief to some struggling to make ends meet in the ever worsening economy.

“We were going through a particularly slow news cycle so this was just a godsend,” said a spokesperson for CNN, who had nearly around the clock coverage of the event for nearly three days. “We were all suffering from post election hangover. We’ve had to lay off a significant amount of people and the economy isn’t making the situation any better. We’re always happy to have a major international incident; it really perks up the spirits of people around the office.”

While traffic and viewers have increased, revenues for many news agencies did not grow at the same level. Partially owing to the economy, partially to the foreign nature of the content, advertisers were hesitant to off larger payments for ad space.

“When it comes to advertisers we have limits when these events occur outside the United States. Simply put companies like to identify their products with a particular kind of conflict and many feel that American viewers, while interested in foreign events, don’t really connect to them,” continued the spokesperson. “That’s why we spent so much time talking about Al Qaeda and emphasizing the fact that Americans had been taken hostage. We want the American people to engage this conflict as though it were happening outside their front door and the best way to do that is make it personal. Eyewitness accounts, crying children, angry parents; all those things have an effect on viewers that engages them on a deeper level. What we hope is for people to eventually become desensitized to ethnic and racial differences and realize that fear is universal. It’s an ongoing project, but luckily most other news agencies feel the same way.”

To that end CNN, along with FOX News and other 24 hour cable channels have a standing policy to reference particular terrorist incidents at specific intervals in order to enforce the idea that American lives are at risk.

“From what I understand CNN is something like 9/11 once every half hour. Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden are mentioned twice in every segment between commercials. These are just rough numbers though, anchors are allowed to mention those incidents more frequently,” said Scrape TV Media analyst Sarah Piper. “They have similar deals with pundits who are obligated to mention specific events at specific times. They did very well this time around considering that they had a lot of new people in the mix. Erica Hill did a commendable job taking over for Anderson Cooper. She even had that little emoting thing that small town anchors use to try and convince people they care. She’s definitely part of the new breed of personalities for the network, a new breed that effortlessly comments on the news as they are reporting it.”

FOX News on the other hand has a more aggressive policy, making sure to mention either Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, or al-Zawahiri once every three sentences.

“There’s a reason FOX is the ratings leader and will remain so for a long time to come,” continued Piper. “Everyone else is just playing catch up with them when it comes to manipulating the news for maximum revenue. They all have a long way to go to catch up.”

Playing catch up is something its competitors know all too well. To that end both CNN and MSNBC have started ‘Skill Schools’ to aid reporters in affecting their audience.

“It’s very clear that we need to be ready. Terrorists aren’t going to just wait around for us to be ready to exploit their exploits,” concluded the CNN spokesperson. “Our people need to be at the ready when these incidents occur so that we can maximize our ratings and revenue opportunities. This was a good test for us, but we will be even better next time. Hopefully that will be soon.”

Samantha Dryden, Entertainment Correspondent

NEWS > ENTERTAINMENT > MUMBAI TERRORIST ATTACKS DRAW RECORD RATINGS

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