Great AdAge piece comparing the declining audience for CNN with the increasing audience for CNN.com. The piece quotes Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons saying, “I worry about CNN more than I do about CNN.com.”

CNN’s ratings have been on a steady decline since 2003, when it regularly got 689,000 households to tune in each day, to a low of 383,000 last year, according to Nielsen Media Research. For the first six months of this year, it’s up to 431,000.

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Traffic continues to climb over at CNN.com, however, with unique users up nearly 25% to 26 million in April compared with the same period last year.

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And where the viewers go, so do the ad dollars. Since 2003, CNN’s cable revenue has dropped 11%, from $424.2 million to $378.5 million in 2006, while digital revenue has nearly doubled, from $34.8 million to $71.4 million, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

CNN still has some great programming, amid the tripe like Lou Dobb’s hourlong anti-immigration crusade that airs each weekday. Some of the best programs, like Reliable Sources, are available online as podcasts. (I watch it from the comfort of my couch on Apple TV.)

This week’s Reliable Sources has a great montage showing how the three cable news networks handled the announcement of General Peter Pace’s replacement. All three went straight from Pace to live pictures of Paris Hilton. Video, Transcript (search for CONTESSA BREWER, MSNBC)

That’s exactly why I prefer CNN.com to CNN.

via Paul Kedrosky