CNN’s Airport Monopoly Is FINALLY Coming to an END

Netwars
USA
17.10.2019
Steve Turley

We are going to look at why a number of articles have been written of late detailing how the once-unchallenged monopoly that the Clown News Network has had for nearly three decades is finally coming to an end, not just for CNN in airports but for CNN as a whole! How is that for a breath of fresh air. Imagine that, going to airports and not seeing those three letters anywhere even near your gate. That is what is going on in more and more airports as we speak. Have you ever wondered why is it that every time I go to the airport, every time I sit down at my gate, I am constantly assaulted by tv monitors playing one and only one so-called television news network, CNN? Why on earth, it does not matter where I am, at what airport throughout the United States, and I am assuming much of the Anglosphere    we are constantly bombarded with the propaganda disguised as journalism spewed from the mouths of these CNN tv anchors. Or we look up at these monitors and we are polluted with these bottom of the screen headlines that mock President Trump and everything that we love and value, in terms of nationalism, populism, and traditionalism. Why does CNN have such a screen monopoly and why are we constantly subject to it?

Well, the short answer is MONEY. CNN actually pays for those tv monitors.    Back in 1991, CNN started what was to become a branch of their company known as the CNN Airport Network, that was actually a very good business move. CNN pays airports upwards of a $150 thousand dollars a year, a multi-year contract. They pay the airport hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to install tv monitors all throughout the airport. Often they even rent a storefront space in the airport to sell their brand. Then CNN uses this exposure to attract advertisers by promising them that they can reach hundreds of millions of people who travel through airports throughout the nation. That is precisely what the media kit for CNN Airport Network says. They actually make the rather astonishing claim that 323 million people watch CNN Airport on an annual basis at its 2,400 gates throughout the country. As I understand it, the CNN Airport Network brings in about $10 million dollars a year in advertising revenue. Because of the multi-year contract, CNN has been able to squeeze out any potential competitors, and hence it has created its own kind of monopoly. Of course the part of the contract is that CNN controls the feed on the monitors, and so the channels cannot be altered and the volume cannot be muted. In fact, CNN even has sound-adjusting settings so that the volume automatically rises during the louder ports of the travel day. This is how they have been able to build an airport monopoly, now in virtually every major airport in the United States, playing 24/7 in over 2,400 gates throughout the country. At least it used to…

Unfortunately for CNN Airport Network, there have emerged a few new developments that is putting that monopoly in jeopardy once and for all. The first development is that as of 2012, a new competitor came on the scene, called Clear Channel Airport. It is a division of Clear Channel Outdoor and an indirect subsidiary of iHeartMedia. They have come up with a new television display that is actually signed deals with major TV networks like Fox to provide alternative content to that of CNN. It is really interesting in terms of how this happened. Originally, Clear Channel was teaming up with CNN in a handful of airports in the United States, to offer more viewing options. However, the advertisers started to complain that they did not see any real need for CNN’s offerings. So Clear Channel said: Fine, we will ditch CNN and go it alone. It is working; they are now in a number of airports instead of CNN. For example, they just signed a deal with Philadelphia Airport serving the sixth largest metropolitan area in the country, where I fly out of. CNN has a major competitor, viable one, now in the airports that serve the country’s largest metropolitan areas.  

There is a second development in all of this; our mobile devices, our iphones, and even free airport Wi-Fi, all of which allows travelers to now curate their content. Curated content, like what we have on YouTube, is no longer the wave of the future. It is the reality of the present. Those tv monitors are in many respects Jurassic holdovers from an earlier era. When CNN Airport started back in the early 1990s       mobile devices were still up and coming and the internet was just getting started. People got their news by staring at a tv monitor and by reading a newspaper. Those days are over! We now curate our news content, actively choosing when and where we want to avail ourselves of news and current events. We get to choose the news source, we don’t have to settle; we don’t have to wait to the 7 o’clock news hour    and we sure do not have to rely on network monopolies like CNN. This is why San Francisco International announced last year that they formally terminated their relationship with CNN after their existing contract expired. The airport just could not justify having their tv monitors held captive by this monopoly any longer. So that is the second development that is killing CNN. They are relying on a business model that has been rendered largely obsolete by virtue of the new ways in which we consume news via our mobile devices and Wi-Fi.

The third reason why CNN’s airport monopoly is coming to an end is CNN itself. More and more travelers are simply fed up with the pathetic whining propaganda that spews from these television monitors and it is frankly the last thing they want to be privy to. Many travelers have taken to Twitter and started online petitions to get the network removed from airports. You see, back in the early 90s    CNN was relatively reputable. The news always slanted left, due to the modernization and secularization of the media that took place in the first half of the 20th century. However, the leftwing slant was at least measured back then. Dare I say it, it was actually a dignified tilt where there was always a standard of professionalism and dignity among the news anchors. All of that is dead today. CNN has become an utterly hysterical frenzied irrational network prone to conspiracy theories and fake news. They have been outed as rabid leftwing political activists disguised as journalists    who provide so-called news coverage as a platform for them to voice their virtue signaling moral outrage on both President Trump and middle-American values of nationalism and patriotism and populism. As a result, CNN’s ratings as a whole have just completely imploded. CNN’s ratings have been in free fall recently. Just in the last three years, during the Trump years, CNN has lost nearly 40 percent of their viewership! The one saving grace that they have had thus far, in the midst of all that, was of course CNN Airport Network. Well my friends, as it turns out, even that one saving grace is beginning to crumble. It is my pleasure to inform you that we are not far from the days when CNN will be nothing more than a distant and very unpleasant memory.       

 

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