Commentary

MSNBC, BBC, Fox News and PBS Lead In TV News Trust

In this fourth wave of Media Trust Tracking research we examined how much “trust” is engendered when it comes to individual TV news brands. 

Respondents for the February 2020 wave included 4,624 viewers (balanced for gender and political affiliation, drawn from the nine U.S. Census Regions) who rated brands they watched regularly (3+ times a week) via the Brand Keys Emotional Engagement Brand Analysis, which is conducted by Brand Keys, Inc. 

Brand Keys found the following wave-to-wave trust assessments:


Anecdotally, the BBC’s increase was related to its Brexit coverage. FOX News, MSNBC, and CNN increases were associated with the impeachment and trial coverage, and the Bloomberg increase was linked by viewers to Mr. Bloomberg’s ads for his presidential run. 

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As a huge percentage of the news coverage dealt with President Trump, Brand Keys was again interested to see how much “trust” viewers had in the President, versus their regularly-watched TV brands. In the most recent wave, overall respondent “trust” levels rated Mr. Trump at 15% (-1%). By political affiliation, Democrats rated Mr. Trump 3% (-5%), Independents 9% (-5%), and Republicans 32% (+7%). 

Methodology

Brand Keys uses an independently-validated research methodology that fuses emotional and rational aspects of the categories, identifies four path-to-purchase behavioral drivers for the category-specific Ideal, and identifies the values (including “trust” as it is characterized in a particular category) that form the components of each driver, along with their percent-contribution to engagement, loyalty, and profitability. 

These assessments have been proven to be leading-indicators of consumer behavior, identifying activities 12 to 18 months before they appear in traditional brand tracking or are articulated in focus groups. 

1 comment about "MSNBC, BBC, Fox News and PBS Lead In TV News Trust".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, February 26, 2020 at 8:16 a.m.

    Interesting findings, Robert, And reading the tea leaves, I see a disturbing trend for Trump, not only in his own stats but in those for MSNBC which is staunchly opposed to him. What would be important to note, however, would be the absolutes. In other words how many people---or what percent of the total population--- qualified to rate each news source in each study. For example, say that 20% of the sample was exposed to Trump's "news" 3+ times weekly in 2018 but that figure has declined to only 10% today. Couple that with your ratings and his decline in total trustability would have declined even more sharply in terms of how many people he still rsonates with. Any chance of providing such percentages?

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