CNN And MSNBC Battle Over Who’s Winning More And Losing Least
We saw how Fox News is doing in the ratings yesterday – April made it 100 months with the network #1, and far ahead of the cable competition.
But how was April for CNN and MSNBC? Well, depends on who you ask. Here were each network’s big points – and what they mean.
• CNN is #2 from 9-6pmET – MSNBC is #2 from 6pm-MidnightET: Generally. For example, MSNBC topped CNN in the A25-54 demographic during the earlier hours and in total viewers as well in prime time (by far). But CNN wins in both categories during the day and in total viewers in total day. All the daytime “non-opinion news programming” (CNN release language) saw CNN with a big advantage in both categories.
• MSNBC isn’t just beating CNN in prime time – they’re beating CNN by a lot: Countdown won for the 26th consecutive month, more than doubling CNN in both categories (HLN was actually 3rd). The Countdown 10pmET repeat also beat the live Anderson Cooper, for the first time in total viewers in almost 10 years. Rachel Maddow topped Larry King big as well.
• But many of these MSNBC shows (and some FNC shows) are down year-to-year: CNN’s release featured an odd sub-headline at the top, touting losses by the competition (specifically Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann). A significant portion of the release highlights losses by MSNBC and Fox News. But here’s the problem – CNN is down more. Year-to-year in April, MSNBC was down 6% and 13% in prime time, total viewers and demo, and FNC was down 19% and 13%. But CNN – down 38% and 41%. Similar numbers came up for total day.
• Robin Meade makes it a year over Morning Joe: HLN’s Morning Express with Robin Meade topped MSNBC’s Morning Joe in the demo by 63% in April – it was the 12th month beating the show in that categories. The program was also the only morning show on cable news to go up in the demo year-to-year. MSNBC, though, did beat CNN in the morning.
• Hardball and Ed Show perform solidly: For the first time ever, Chris Matthews beat CNN at 5pmET in total viewers (but lost in demo). The repeat beat John King USA in both categories. Ed Schultz beat The Situation Room in both categories and grew year-to-year.
• Joy!: The cable news show to grow the most in total viewers year-to-year? Joy Behar‘s on HLN at 9pmET.
What’s missing here are CNN victories – very little about prime time, and even less about new shows like Ali Velshi‘s, Rick Sanchez‘ and John King’s. For MSNBC, we don’t see much about the new shows either – Daily Rundown, Dylan Ratigan‘s. For the most part, April continued to separate the two networks even more obviously as news vs. opinion. During the news day hours, CNN is #2, when it’s opinion hours, MSNBC takes over, and takes over big.
