NewsNation, Nexstar Media Group’s four-year-old cable news network, is making a strong showing an otherwise soft upfront advertising market.
“NewsNation is going to be up over 20%, 25% in volume,” Michael Strober, chief revenue officer of Nexstar, told Broadcasting+Cable. “We’re seeing a lot of new dollars and over 15 new advertisers coming to the network.”
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NewsNation’s larger, more-established competitors have been going through changes. CNN replaced its CEO, Chris Licht, after his programming changes failed to click and Fox News Channel has a new primetime lineup after dismissing Tucker Carlson and agreeing to pay $787 million to settle a defamation suit about the network’s coverage of false claims about voting fraud in the 2020 election.
Presidential election years like the one coming up in 2024 usually generate big ratings and higher ad revenues for news networks, but Strober said the political calendar was not the main factor behind NewsNation’s gains.
“I think these advertisers are coming because they want to support news programming,“ he said. “It's live, it's where they can get valuable audiences.”
With the competition of SVOD capturing entertainment viewers, more advertisers are looking to news as a way to find large numbers of viewers. “Advertisers are able to add NewsNation to their buys and reach audiences that they haven't reached before," Strober said.
Some advertisers have traditionally been squeamish about appearing amid the mayhem and controversy that often appears in newscasts.
Strober said NewsNation’s gains are “a recognition that we have a cable news network that is not only one of the fastest-growing networks in television, but it is also very well rates as a safe environment for brands to be associated with.”
NOTE: This story has been edited to remove some inaccurate data about NewsNation’s audience.
