CNN has long been known to do well with breaking news events, particularly ones like the recent disappearance of Malaysian airliner Flight 370.
The continuing mystery surrounding the missing plane has led to a ratings boost for the 24-hour news channel and its competitors.
A new survey has shown why — the topic and speed of news stories are the biggest drivers in how people consume media, outshining demographics or ideology.
See also: Timeline: The Mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The study highlights what has been seen as a long-standing problem for companies like CNN — strong performance during news cycles that favor its format, but weakness on topics that are more evergreen.
Television remains the leading medium for news, with channels like CNN serving as the primary source for international news, politics, business and economic news, and social issues.
The Media Insight Project, a joint initiative between the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, executed the study, which was based on a survey of 1,492 adults.
While 24-hour news fared particularly well when people sought international news, political coverage or stories about social issues, it was last in more consistent topics such as traffic and weather, arts and culture, sports and lifestyle topics.
Television as a whole maintains a healthy lead over other mechanisms when it comes to discovering the news, but the Internet has emerged as the most favored place to follow up and learn more.
Almost 60% of respondents said they went online to follow-up on breaking news, while 18% chose television.
"People hear about breaking news on TV a lot of the time and then for about half of them... they said they did try to go an find more information and for most people the Internet is their next step," Jennifer Agiesta, director of polling at Associated Press, told Mashable.

Image: © Copyright 2014. The Media Insight Project
These trends stayed relatively consistent across various factors thought to influence how people absorb news, including age, gender and political ideology.
"In contrast to the idea that one generation tends to rely on print, another on television and still another the web, the majority of Americans across generations now combine a mix of sources and technologies to get their news each week," the study states.
Among the study's most surprising points is the growing popularity of news alerts set to smartphones. Almost half of Americans have signed up for alerts, the study claims.
Alerts still lag the other major news discovery areas, but they are considered the most trustworthy way of discovering news.

While mobile alerts are the least common way people get news, they are also the most trusted, according to a recent media survey.
Image: AP/NORC survey
Erle Norton, executive producer of ABC News Digital, said the story about the Malaysian airliner had produced particularly strong results from its mobile alerts.
"We have a record number of people signed up to receive customized push alerts around this topic," he said.
"We make sure they see any time there is a live streaming press conference, an updated text story or digital original video from our correspondents in Asia. Of course, we’re also sending major updates to our general audience on mobile when news breaks. We’ve been rewarded with high engagement as a result," he added.
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