CDC Sodium Announcement Gets Super-Bowl-Sized Media Coverage

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) made a major announcement on February 7, 2012 covering the release of their new report on reducing sodium in American diets. The new report featured the top ten sources of sodium in processed food, with the surprising discovery that foods like bread and processed meats are the leading sources of sodium in consumer diets.

CDC

The announcement drew massive media coverage demonstrating once again that reducing sodium in our diets is a major concern for the American consumer. It’s been estimated that during the course of the seven to ten day news cycle, over 120 million Americans will see or hear a media story on the CDC announcement. That’s nearly 60 percent of adults over the age of 25 and exceeds the audience for the recent Super Bowl.

In a survey sponsored by Nu-Tek Salt, LLC, Universal Information Services estimated that 63.1 million adults saw or heard a feature story on the CDC announcement during the first 36 hours of the news cycle, when 50 percent of impressions are usually recorded. Based on that sampling, the survey estimates 126.2 million impressions total for the full news cycle.

The early coverage was dominated by television, with feature stories appearing on all of the major broadcast and cable networks. Leading the pack was a featured lead story from Brian Williams on the NBC Nightly News.

Media coverage of sodium-reduction efforts has been steadily increasing for several years now. With the Super-Bowl-sized coverage for the CDC sodium-reduction announcement, even more American consumers will be aware of the need to lower sodium in their diets. This could prove to be one of the tipping points for the sodium reduction and replacement ingredient market in food processing and manufacturing.