Former Fox News host Chris Wallace has just suffered another humiliation after U.S. streaming services beat cable TV viewing for the first time, despite his CNN Plus gig failing in under a month.
The news comes as the network’s new owner, billionaire Trump donor John Malone, and his management team led by Chris Licht have made their first move in the long-rumored layoffs at CNN.
Brian Stelter, a loyalist to former CNN boss Jeff Zucker, was sent packing by the network on Thursday and saw his show “Reliable Sources” canceled.
More cuts are coming at CNN with Jim Acosta rumored to be next.
And as Chris Wallace found out the hard way, CNN no longer has a streaming service to dump failed stars on because it flopped within a month.
CNN hired a disgruntled Wallace by poaching him from Fox News to headline CNN Plus, but this platform immediately nose-dived.
It was a humiliating setback for Wallace, CNN, and the rest crew.
Now the nail in the coffin has come for Wallace’s career as a bombshell report from Neilson shows just how humiliating CNN Plus’s failure was.
The report shows that Americans just spent more time streaming content than they did watching cable for the first time ever.
Despite the increased demand, Wallace and CNN Plus still managed to flop in that growing market.
Tucker Carlson, for example, regularly breaks news on Fox News’s streaming service and conducts must-see interviews to drive subscriptions.
The ratings for this market were:
- 10% Other
- 8% Netflix
- 7% YouTube
- 3% Hulu
- 3% Amazon Prime
- 1.8% Disney
- 1% HBO Max.
According to Variety:
Americans now watch more stuff on TV from streaming services than either broadcast or cable TV.
Streaming platforms, led by Netflix, in July 2022 for the first time surpassed cable networks to claim the largest share of U.S. TV viewing for the month, according to new data from Nielsen.
It was only a matter of time before the milestone was reached, as streaming usage has continued to climb while traditional TV declines amid the steady drip-drip-drip of cord-cutting losses.
For the month of July, streaming among American TV households represented a record 34.8% share of total consumption, while cable and broadcast came in at 34.4% and 21.6%, respectively.
Streaming usage has surpassed that of broadcast before, but this is the first time it has also exceeded cable viewing.
Netflix again held the largest share of overall TV viewing among streaming platforms with 8.0% — a record high for the service.
That was driven by nearly 18 billion viewing minutes of “Stranger Things 4” alone for July along with almost 11 billion minutes of combined viewing of “Virgin River” and “The Umbrella Academy.”
In addition, Netflix original movies “The Sea Beast” and “The Gray Man,” starring Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas, and Chris Evans, contributed over 5 billion minutes, per Nielsen.
Hulu’s record 3.6% share for July 2022 was helped by the second season of “Only Murders in the Building” and “The Bear,” which combined for about 3 billion minutes viewed.
Amazon’s Prime Video’s 3.0% share was driven by new series “The Terminal List” and new episodes of “The Boys,” which garnered over 8 billion combined viewing minutes.
