With Clinton Under Fire, Viewers Vote for the News

The sexual allegations surrounding President Clinton have spurred a general increase in television news ratings since the story broke, boosting cable news channels and such programs as NBC’s “Meet the Press” and ABC’s “Nightline.”

Coverage peaked Tuesday evening with Clinton’s State of the Union address, which averaged 53 million viewers, that event’s biggest audience since 1993 and an increase of nearly 30% over last year, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Ratings during the last week have exhibited heightened interest in prime-time newsmagazines, nightly newscasts and network morning programs, which have all devoted considerable time to the story.

In most instances, growth has been modest. Aggregate viewing of the three nightly network newscasts, for example, was up 6% nationally after the allegations surfaced, compared to the previous week.

“It’s a little bit of a [ratings] spike. It’s not seismic,” noted one news executive.

Gains in other areas have proved more substantial. ABC’s late-night program “Nightline” saw its audience increase by more than 20% from a week earlier, to an average 6.3 million viewers. The program still trailed NBC’s “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” however.

Weekend discussion programs also posted expansive growth, led by NBC’s “Meet the Press,” which last Sunday drew its biggest audience since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, an increase of 71% nationally and roughly double that in Washington.

NBC’s “Today” show--featuring anchor Matt Lauer’s interview with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday--jumped to its highest daily rating since the 1989 San Francisco earthquake.

Lesser-seen cable news channels have experienced significant gains as well. Ratings for CNN and fledgling competitors MSNBC and Fox News Channel have increased 60% or more, while still making up a relatively small part of the viewing pie.

Surveys show that television has supplied viewers a steady diet of stories regarding allegations linking Clinton with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.

Russ Ptacek, president of the news content monitoring firm Video Information Inc., cited 142 reports on newsmagazine programs (including such syndicated fare as “Hard Copy” and “Inside Edition”) regarding the scandal since Jan. 21, accounting for nearly one-third of all stories broadcast during the next week.

“It’s been pretty intense,” Ptacek said, calling this the most extensive TV coverage devoted to the administration in the two years the report has been published. In terms of sheer volume, the story has surpassed any recent news event except the death of Diana, princess of Wales.

Though a separate study by the Washington-based Center for Media and Public Affairs found that CBS has provided the heaviest coverage, on a competitive basis ABC appears to have benefited more. The network’s “World News Tonight” climbed out of third place last week, and ABC’s State of the Union coverage ranked first, edging ratings leader NBC.

Clinton’s address maintained another tradition, meanwhile, by allowing a relatively new network, the WB, to capitalize on the absence of entertainment programming on ABC, CBS and NBC. Using a tactic once employed by Fox, the WB scored its highest rating ever Tuesday with the new serialized drama “Dawson’s Creek,” which was watched by 8 million people; it appeared opposite wall-to-wall speech coverage in most of the country.