
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 14, 1991                   TAG: 9103130126
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ATLANTA                                LENGTH: Short

VIEWERSHIP DOWN AS THINGS GET BACK TO NORMAL AT CNN

Signs of peace abound at Cable News Network: It has returned to regular programming, scheduled long-awaited vacations for staffers and resumed public tours. And viewership, which soared when the Gulf War began, has plunged.

A.C. Nielsen Co. ratings provided by CNN show the Atlanta-based network has gradually lost large chunks of its wartime audience since reaching an all-time high 9.4 rating on Jan. 16, the night war began.

The network averaged about a 3 rating during February. That had dropped to a 2.2 as of Thursday. The network averaged a 0.7 rating for all of 1990.

One rating point equals 1 percent of CNN's possible audience, or about 56.8 million households.

"It's actually been a rather gradual drop-off," CNN spokesman Steve Haworth said Monday. "Even if they drop off to say 15 or 20 percent above what they were before the war, we'll have benefited."

David Marans, vice president for media research at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in New York, said the ratings drop wasn't surprising.

"It would be very unusual that CNN would be able to hold up anywhere near where its Persian Gulf War ratings were," Marans said. "They will emerge from the war ahead of where they were before it began."

Haworth said the war coverage boosted the network's ratings and increased cable TV's popularity in general. The number of Europeans subscribing to cable carrying CNN jumped from 7 million to 8 million after the war erupted.

CNN officials now are considering adding foreign bureaus, Haworth said. He couldn't give specifics.

by CNB