CNN's "News Mix"

The BBQ Pit
1

CNN recently changed its news format to something called “News Mix”. Basically, it means your screen contains four different feeds, with only the primary (upper left) one having audio. And each of these can be subdivided as needed. The primary feed is the one where Wolf Blitzer, Jake Tapper, et al live. The other three can be anything, including commercials. You see people whose mouths are silently moving, you see four people debating some unknown issue, you see someone silently explaining something on a map. These three feeds, without audio, are effectively without content, and the feed with audio, the one with actual content, is reduced to the small rectangle in the upper left.

Whose lame-brained idea was this? What is it supposed to accomplish, other than total confusion? How many viewers are they losing thanks to this?

2

Where? Are you talking about an online news video feed?

3

I’m talking about their cable (or satellite) broadcast news show, not online.

4

I’m not sure what you mean. This is one of the rare occasions when I’m watching them on cable, and it’s just completely normal single-screen coverage of the election.

5

I tried to google “CNN news mix” and the only hits I got for that combination was this thread. I couldn’t find any reference to it on CNN.com either, although that site is very busy and confusing.

I don’t watch cable news so I haven’t seen it.

6

I found a CNN story about a woman killed by a French bulldog mix.

I went to the actual station on cable and it looked the same as normal.

So, WTF is the OP watching?

I did find this article about putting ads in the ticker but that’s nothing like what is described here.

7

I think this may be a temporary thing because of the frequent news updates related to the Georgia Senate runoffs. MSNBC is doing something similar this evening, especially when it’s time to play a commercial. The commercial takes up only part of the screen, with a banner showing the vote totals at the bottom of the screen and the “Kornacki Cam” off to the side.

Our local news station does something similar during major local news events, like hurricanes and blizzards.

8

NFL games do something similar now when there is a very short break… Rather than cut to commercial, they do a picture-in-picture showing the game on one part (with no sound) and a commercial in the other. That format seems new, so maybe this is a new thing for certain TV broadcasts.

It’s definitely not the new CNN broadcast style in general though, because I’m not seeing it on my TV.

9

It’s all about defeating those of us who fast-forward through the commercials.

I predict that soon all TV will be shown in split screen with one half of the screen being ads and the other being the program you’re trying to watch.


I happened to rent a car yesterday. A 2020 or 2021 Nissan Altima, so nothing fancy. There’s the now-typical ~6"x8" LCD screen at the top of the center console area displaying all sorts of stuff. With touchscreen “buttons” for audio, phone, navigation, etc.

While listening to local broadcast FM radio I noticed there was a crawl of commercial messages for local businesses scrolling across the screen ??!!!??? WTF?? FM radio has for some years now had the ability to carry some limited text data along with the audio signal; typically stations transmit the artist & song title. Now they’re sending ads.

F*** that noise.

10

Usually, though, people are watching things like CNN, a sports game or an awards ceremony like the Academy Awards live, so it’s not possible to fast-forward through the commercials. A couple of years ago, one production company, I think Dick Clark Productions, was sold for really good money and the explanation was that they produced a bunch of stuff that people watch live.

11

True.

Then again, there are people like me who refuse to watch anything live. I’m perfectly happy watching last week’s football. Precisely so I don’t have to watch any commercials.

For something that I really want to watch same day, I’ll let it record about 1/3rd of the way in then begin watching. For a typical show with 20 minutes of commercials per hour of broadcast, that means I catch up to real time just as the show ends. For playoff sports it’s closer to 45% commercials, so you have to wait farther into the game, plus account for the 20 minutes of yakyak on the show billed as “the game” before the playing begins. Which is different from the 2 hours of yakyak on the show labeled “pre-game”.

Hell, I still have the the entire American League half of the 2020 MLB playoffs queued up to watch later. I watched the NL side delayed a day or so and did the same for the World Series.

When I am in a hotel I occasionally turn on the TV; I’m always repulsed and quickly turn it back off because there’s just no way to avoid the non-stop barrage of ads. Later this year I should be getting a cloud-based DVR so I can watch my own delayed recordings from anywhere on my personal device. And in some cases “cast” that to the larger in-room screen.

But even more likely I’ll just spend my in-room time pontificating at y’all. Zero commercials and a much better signal to noise ration during the “programming”. :wink:

12

They have done this in auto-racing for a long time. They call it “Going Non-stop” or some bullshit like this. I’ve got mixed feelings, because they act they are doing us a favor, but on the other hand, there are no time-outs at 200mph. Formula One, on Sky Sports just doesn’t have commercials. So that’s cool.

This is how I pretty much watch TV also. Get up, turn on the box, press Pause, take a shower, make breakfast, then sit down and catch up. Got it down to a science, nearly!

Clearly, I need a better life…

13

I have DirecTV. For me, “News Mix” is on channel 200 and has the screen divided into 4 sub-screens, each showing a preview of what’s on the main cable news channels.

The actual CNN channel, which you’re looking for, is on 202.

Again, I’m on DirecTV with HD, so ymmv. Channel numbers may differ for you if you’re on a different package or a different provider.

DirecTV also does the same thing for sports nerds if you have the Sunday Ticket package, where you can watch 4, or even 8(!) games at the same time.

14

That’s the problem. The OP presented this as a CNN thing and it’s not. Hence why we can’t find “CNN news mix” information. I just looked up “DirecTV news mix” and found a ton of info.

This isn’t a CNN thing at all. You’re not on the right channel. :laughing:

15

Which reminds me of a story …

I’m the president of my condo building. Some of our residents are quite elderly, increasingly infirm, and really ought not be living alone here any more.

A few months ago I got called out to talk to one dear old lady who said the cable company had changed her channels around. She knew her favorite show was on channel, say, 9, and now that channel had some other program on it. She knew it was the wrong content since the other program and all the ads were in Spanish.

Expecting she’d just goobered up some setting by fat-fingering her remote I went to see her. We all have the same channel lineup, and I know 9’s the Univision channel and has been for years.

Her TV’s working fine, the channels I’ve memorized are all in their accustomed places, so I ask her what show she wants to watch. ABC’s Good Morning America. ABC is, say, channel 20 and always has been. Which the on-screen TV guide confirms. So I call up channel 20 and a miracle occurs: there’s GMA!

But she was certain channel 9 was the right channel. I left her with “Now it’s on channel 20. Do you want me to write that down for you?”. “NO! I can remember it.”

I later checked with her 60-ish daughter. The daughter was confused for a bit then had a lightbulb moment: “Of course! Channel 9 was the ABC affiliate back in CT when she lived up North!” So I ask how long it’s been since Mom moved down to FL. “20-plus years.”

The dear woman now lives in a memory care facility. It’s a tragedy. But with occasional comedic moments like this one.

It’s not what you forget that gets you. It’s what you remember that just ain’t so. Anymore.


I have to say as I get farther into smart TVs, streaming, etc., all the mental context I have about how TV "works" from the end-user POV is increasingly unhelpful. It's really better to think of the TV as sorta like a browser and each TV app or programming source or "channel" as more like a website. All conceptually similar, but no two the same in how exactly they work or what they can show you.
16

OP here. Yes, unbeknownst to me, somehow DirecTV changed my channel to “News Mix.” It looks like CNN, because all the sub-screens have CNN content. I’m requesting this thread to be closed.

18

Closed at request of OP.