Business

Slow fade-out

After losing its ratings lead and falling to last in primetime, the once-dominant CNN stands to lose the last piece of top-shelf value still attached to its business side: premium pricing.

Time Warner-owned CNN, while getting beaten handily in the ratings race and having fallen to fourth place in rankings, still commands higher ad rates than rivals — in some cases double those of Fox News and MSNBC.

But perhaps not for long.

While advertisers have been willing to shell out more for CNN’s venerable brand, broad audience reach and less-opinionated programming, media buyers said the network’s ratings slide is likely to bring down pricing.

“They will maintain a premium, but will it stay this high?” asked one ad buyer. “I think it will probably go down.”

And that could cost them millions of dollars in advertising revenue.

In the world of television advertising, a big audience doesn’t necessarily translate into the highest ad rates. Media buyers said CNN has the benefit of 30 years in the business and a trusted name that still resonates with advertisers.

“All in all, they have tried to maintain their objectivity and be a force for objective journalism,” said Steve Lanzano, executive vice president of MPG, a media-buying firm. “I think that’s the reason why advertisers aren’t shying away.”

Clearly, CNN has decided to double down on straight reporting.

Lou Dobbs, a longtime anchor and one of the original talking heads at the network, announced last week that he was leaving the Atlanta-based company. His strong views on immigration and his dogged pursuit of the Obama “birther” story — alleging President Obama was not born in the US — often put him at odds with his network.

At the same time, CNN’s middle-of-the-road programming is a double-edged sword. While viewers flock to CNN during major events like election nights, it struggles to stem viewer defection in slower news cycles. Meanwhile, its rivals are taking the opposite approach, relying on big personalities with strong political views.

“News has become personality-driven more and more so,” said Brad Adgate, director of research for Horizon Media, an ad-buying firm. “With slow news nights, CNN doesn’t do as well because it’s not personality-driven.”

While CNN lost the overall ratings race several years ago, the network’s primetime struggles have worsened this year. In October, CNN finished last behind Fox News, MSNBC and, most embarrassingly, its own sister network, Headline News, or HLN, among 25-to-54-year-old viewers, the age group that matters most to advertisers.

CNN came in fourth, with an average of 190,000 viewers in that age group, just behind HLN, which averaged 191,000. Fox News won the category with 583,000 viewers, while MSNBC came in second with 239,000.

Among total viewers, CNN still beat MSNBC across all programming, but placed a distant second to Fox News. (News Corp. owns Fox News and The Post.)

Still, CNN downplays the ratings issue and said it is sticking to a business plan that emphasizes growth beyond television to include the Web and mobile phones.

The network also takes a “cross-platform” approach to ad sales to bolster its TV business. A majority of its ad buys are package deals that incorporate advertising on another CNN property, such as CNN.com or sister network, HLN.

CNN boasts one of the most-visited news sites on the Web. It’s a destination for viewing online video as well as reading news. Like a lot of traditional media outlets that have made the move online, CNN is packaging Web and TV sales to draw advertisers.

Ironically, all the effort it has put in and the success it has produced may be siphoning viewers from television.

“Their digital strategy is dead-on,” said one ad buyer. “The problem is it’s so good it hurts the network. Headline News’ site gives me all the news in half an hour; CNN’s gives me all the news in eight minutes. You spend a few minutes on their site and you’re done.”

For its part, CNN said its strategy is paying off and that it has posted six straight years of profit growth. As one ad buyer said, “CNN is still top of mind.”

holly.sanders@nypost.com.