I find that incredibly unlikely. I agree that the very small number of people who watch "sy fy" channel could be a perfect cross section of humanity, but that's not likely.
The appeal level is extremely low (99% of the population would rather do anything else) and the barrier to entry is extremely low (its marginal cost is "free" if you have cable and a tv, and how hard is it to turn on a TV?) and the marketing is extensive (who in the USA has never heard of CNN before?) The content is highly formulaic and repetitive, typical characteristics of things that only appeal to a small minority.
There are numerous business scenarios I can think of where a perfectly mainstream biz model fails because of problems with at least one of the above, but CNN and daytime news networks in general have no such excuse, they're just not mainstream anymore than sy fy channel or tennis channel is mainstream.
The appeal level is extremely low (99% of the population would rather do anything else) and the barrier to entry is extremely low (its marginal cost is "free" if you have cable and a tv, and how hard is it to turn on a TV?) and the marketing is extensive (who in the USA has never heard of CNN before?) The content is highly formulaic and repetitive, typical characteristics of things that only appeal to a small minority.
There are numerous business scenarios I can think of where a perfectly mainstream biz model fails because of problems with at least one of the above, but CNN and daytime news networks in general have no such excuse, they're just not mainstream anymore than sy fy channel or tennis channel is mainstream.