Ratings: CNN Follows Great Monday Night With Dismal Tuesday

Nando Di FinoNov 2nd, 2011, 7:15 pm
 

Ah, Wolf Blitzer. The second-place spot hardly knew you. A day after getting his highest ratings at 5 p.m. since October 3, Blitzer stumbled badly, attracting just 85,000 viewers in the 35-54 year-old demo. His numbers were the lowest on CNN’s schedule Tuesday night, and he barely beat HLN’s 5 p.m. special, squeezing out a 7,000 viewer victory in the demo. Things didn’t get much better for CNN in the next hour, either, as John King brought in 96,000 demo viewers, falling far behind Bret Baier and Al Sharpton. The good news for CNN? Anderson Cooper, who got the network their only second-place demo finish of the night, at 8 p.m.

Other numbers of note on Tuesday:

  • Shepard Smith had a relatively strong night on FOX, finishing second in the demo on the network, behind Bill O’Reilly. His 2.2 million total viewers had him third on the FOX slate.
  • In the Ed Schultz/Lawrence O’Donnell battle (which they may or may not know we hold here in this post every evening), Schultz finished third in the 8 p.m. slot, while O’Donnell finished second at 10 p.m. O’Donnell drew more viewers in the demo at 10:00 than Schultz did at 8:00, 220,000 to 195,000, but Schultz had more total viewers than O’Donnell.
  • The underdog show you should be rooting for? Prime News with Vinnie Politan at 6 p.m. Politan deserves more than the 45,000 he got in the demo. One reason for the uncharacteristically low ratings? Both sides rested in the Conrad Murray trial early Tuesday morning and closings won’t begin until Thursday.

    • Here are the complete cable news ratings for Tuesday night:

    (Photo credit: Inquisitir)

  • TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD)
    Fox News CNN MSNBC CNN Headline News
    5 pm The5 

    228

    		 Blitzer 

    85

    		 Matthews 

    134

    		 Special 

    78
    6 pm Baier 

    367

    		 King, USA 

    96

    		 Sharpton 

    162

    		 Prime 

    45
    7 pm Shep 

    457

    		 Burnett 

    126

    		 Matthews 

    187

    		 Issues 

    115
    8 pm O’Reilly 

    665

    		 Cooper 

    234

    		 Schultz 

    195

    		 Grace 

    181
    9 pm Hannity 

    429

    		 Piers 

    128

    		 Maddow 

    230

    		 Dr. Drew 

    101
    10 pm Van Susteren 

    344

    		 Cooper 

    200

    		 O’Donnell 

    220

    		 Behar 

    109
    11 pm O’Reilly 

    409

    		 Burnett 

    153

    		 Schultz 

    164

    		 Showbiz 

    127
    TOTAL DAY 309 129 136 105
    PRIME TIME 480 187 215 128
    Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.
    TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD)
    Fox News CNN MSNBC CNN Headline News
    5 pm The5 

    1,417

    		 Blitzer 

    419

    		 Matthews 

    765

    		 Special 

    341
    6 pm Baier 

    2,125

    		 King, USA 

    500

    		 Sharpton 

    807

    		 Prime
    267
    7 pm Shep 

    2,206

    		 Burnett 

    474

    		 Matthews 

    873

    		 Issues 

    376
    8 pm O’Reilly 

    3,364

    		 Cooper 

    640

    		 Schultz 

    1,033

    		 Grace 

    641
    9 pm Hannity 

    2,379

    		 Piers 

    469

    		 Maddow 

    947

    		 DrDrew 

    361
    10 pm Greta 

    1,891

    		 Cooper 

    571

    		 O’Donnell
    879    		 Behar 

    389
    11 pm O’Reilly 

    1,322

    		 Burnett 

    383

    		 Schultz
    454    		 Showbiz 

    335
    TOTAL DAY 1,418 418 521 312
    PRIME TIME 2,548 561 953 457
    Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data

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