CNBC special feature: Sex, drugs ‘n’ not AOL
It turns out CNBC’s business-minded viewers aren’t as interested in the media as they are in sex and drugs.
Proving the adage that the only people who think the media is interesting and glamorous are those who work there, CNBC’s latest original documentary, “Marriage from Hell: The Breakup of AOL Time Warner,” garnered a measly 160,000 viewers during its premiere last week, according to The Nielsen Co.
Those ratings, which rank among the lowest for a CNBC documentary, are dwarfed by the premiere night audience of 1.2 million for the network’s drug-focused documentary, “Marijuana Inc.,” and the just under 500,000 viewers who checked out “Porn: Business of Pleasure.”
Even search engines generated more interest: The premiere of “Inside the Mind of Google” beat “Marriage from Hell” more than twofold, attracting a total of 372,000 viewers.
“We could not overlook the 10-year anniversary of what has been described as the worst merger in the history of modern business dealmaking,” a CNBC spokesperson said.
One conclusion that might be drawn from the ratings for “Marriage from Hell” is that viewers are tuning out the media’s over-saturated coverage of itself. Another could be that CNBC was airing lowest common denominator programming with its pot and porn documentaries in an effort to goose primetime ratings.
“Illicit or licentious behavior is attractive to people,” said Paul Levinson, chairman of Fordham University’s media and communications department. “By contrast, watching a documentary on AOL Time Warner is snoring time.”
The ratings for “Marriage from Hell” also suffered from two strategic mistakes made by the network. Airing the premiere the week after the new year meant that screener copies went out to TV critics over the holidays, when many of them were out of the office.
What’s more, the two main players in the merger — former Time Warner CEO Jerry Levin and ex-AOL boss Steve Case — were on the air two days before the documentary, which may not have helped.
“It hurt the [documentary’s] ratings because everyone heard what they were going to say already,” said one network source.