"News One Now" Loses 36% of Viewers in Shift to 7 a.m.

N1N_Moving_30 from TV One, LLC

Story by Journal-isms
Written by Richard Prince

TV One's "News One Now" with Roland S. Martin, the only live daily news show targeting African Americans, lost 36 percent of its audience when it moved from 9 a.m. to 7 a.m. ET three weeks ago, according to Nielsen research figures provided to Journal-isms.

The program drew an average of 141,000 viewers in from Sept. 7-11, its last week at 9 a.m., but only 90,000 in its first week in the new time slot. Because there is no West Coast feed, viewers in the Pacific time zone see the show at 4 a.m. unless they record it. Martin has repeatedly advised them to do so.

The time shift was implemented to compete with "Good Morning America," "Today," "CBS This Morning" and other such shows for African American viewers.

"After almost two years on the air as the only live daily news program targeting the African American viewer, we are confident News One Now is ready to take on the traditional morning news crowd," Martin said in a news release announcing the switch.

"In this uber-competitive news landscape, it is imperative we make available to the broadest audience possible the in-depth relevance our unique perspective provides. We know viewers have a multitude of options at 7 a.m. for their first news of the day, and we believe the diversity of our focus and continual coverage of issues of import to the African America community will resonate significantly."

A TV One spokeswoman noted that the percentage of those in the key 35-49 demographic group remained stable. "News One Now's ratings for its sweet spot demo of P35-49 continue to consistently deliver for TV One since the daily news program's time change two weeks ago," she said. Nielsen puts that number at about 28 percent of the show's viewers.

In recognition of the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March, TV One is presenting a two-hour block of programming on Friday from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET. The march, called "Justice or Else," takes place the next day. Martin interviewed Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan on Sept. 10, when "News One Now" dedicated the entire show to an in-studio interview. Farrakhan conceived the original march.