CNN goes on alert

CNN's viewership and its reputation as TV's top breaking-news source have taken a severe battering during the past three years.

During the past 18 months primetime and daytime viewership in its home market, the US, steadily shrank as newcomers Fox News Channel and MSNBC lured away viewers.

Now the original cable news network is hoping to translate the ratings boost it scored with its coverage of the New York and Washington terrorist attacks into long-term viewership gains.

The network's wall-to-wall coverage of the attacks drew an estimated 4.7 million homes and 6.4 million viewers across the US on September 11. Its coverage over the next four days averaged 3.1 million homes and 4 million viewers, eclipsing its rivals, Fox News Channel and MSNBC.

Leading CNN's ratings surge were recently hired news anchors Aaron Brown, a veteran of ABC News, and former Fox News correspondent Paula Zahn.

They made their debuts as leads in the cable network's coverage which began moments after the tragedies. As a result, CNN is moving quickly to launch daily news shows for Brown and Zahn that will give the new anchors high-profile slots in the network's schedule.

Media pundits say CNN's long-term ratings gains will be directly tied to whether it can make Brown and Zahn into network household names that viewers will come back to once the news crisis subsides.

"CNN's new reputation hasn't been made yet," said Al Tompkins, broadcast and online group leader at the Poynter Institute, one of the world's leading media think-tanks. "CNN typically does very, very well on international news stories, partially because they have not dismantled their international coverage the way many of the other networks have."

The network has gone on this "big news story" ratings rollercoaster before.

"CNN's problem over the years is that its ratings only went up when there was some kind of a catastrophe, and then they settled back down," James Carey, professor of broadcast media at the Columbia School of Journalism, said. "CNN got a shot in the arm from the OJ Simpson trial and the Clinton-Lewinsky affair and the Gulf War. Then when it was all over, their ratings went back down."

CNN's decline can be traced back to 1998 when the news network was embarrassed by its Operation Tailwind story. Founder Ted Turner had to retract the story, which alleged that the US military used nerve gas on American defectors during the Vietnam War. Casualties from that scandal included the famed New Zealand journalist Peter Arnett.

The network has shown signs of late that it's very serious about getting its cable news crown back.

During the New York crisis CNN beat its news rivals to the punch by getting the first aerial pictures on the air of the World Trade Center disaster area by cutting a deal with the Coast Guard. CNN's rivals cried foul, saying CNN hoodwinked the Coast Guard and should have shared the video with other news networks.

"We feel like we were aggressive and playing fair," general manager Sid Bedingfield said.