Sunday Ratings Reveal U.S. Is More Interested In Lockdown Reruns Than Egypt (Sigh)

ratings

by Mark Joyella | 2:01 pm, February 1st, 2011

» 14 comments

It’s the kind of ratings result that news types find discouraging: a major international story, rapidly deployed network news teams, rushed to air special programming on a weekend, and, well, the viewers sit on their couch and skip the whole thing.

On Sunday night, when Fox’s Geraldo Rivera led the network’s live coverage of the protests in Egypt, and CNN’s Anderson Cooper reported from the region live, rival network MSNBC stuck with its regular weekend Lockup fare–and won.

At 9 p.m., Lockup led among viewers 25-54 with 436,000. Fox News was a distant second, with 222,000 viewers watching Geraldo and CNN was third with 201,000 viewers watching the network’s Egypt special. At 10 p.m., Lockup expanded its lead over Fox (474,000 to 221,000) while CNN’s Egypt special jumped to second place with 257,000 viewers.

MSNBC has faced criticism here and elsewhere for its decision to stick with at times lurid recorded programming instead of bringing in crews on a weekend to cover actual you know, news. But on this weekend, the viewers appear to have voted with their remotes.

cable news ratings, Egypt, lockup, msnbc

TangledThorns

Geraldo is a putz. I love FOX News and even I don’t watch his show.
Moderate

“Geraldo is a putz. I love FOX News and even I don’t watch his show.”

Agreed, Geraldo lets his ego get in the way. A mini version of Olbermann.
paulmdoro

Moderate said:
“Geraldo is a putz. I love FOX News and even I don’t watch his show.”

Agreed, Geraldo lets his ego get in the way. A mini version of Olbermann.

You don’t think all of these cable news hosts have inflated egos? Doesn’t it kind of go with the territory?
tatboy

Sad…
greg454

No, it’s not sad, it’s realistic. People who watch news want to get DIFFERENT news, not Egypt 24/7.

Besides, this story has already covered to death. Booooooring.

http://libertarians4freedom.blogspot.com/
NORBIT

Doesn’t anyone have an old safe we can occupy Geraldo’s time with?!
AngelPeters

That really is sad. Not that I am really surprised.
http://ldownes.wordpress.com Larry Downes

greg454 is correct. It’s not that Americans aren’t interested in news, even international news. It’s that once we hear the same facts 15 times in one hour and a handful supposed experts making uninformed predictions, it’s time to move on. Wall to wall on one story is 1-boring, 2-sensationalism not news.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Tony-Westover/1496648721 Tony Westover

Mark Joyella said:
MSNBC has faced criticism here and elsewhere for its decision to stick with at times lurid recorded programming instead of bringing in crews on a weekend to cover actual you know, news.

This is completely unfair criticism! MSNBC is in no way a news channel and expecting them to pretend to be one during the weekends is unreasonable.
WCinWI

No offense but both the SAG awards and a Betty White Hallmark movie on CBS were on.

What else was there to gain from this story? Obama is having his Carter moment whether he is guiding the situation along or not.
BatBoy

Geraldo’s ratings qualify him for a job on MSNBC or CNN, that is about it.
Nacho

People want entertainment over news.

That is why when FoxNews isn’t actually covering news, they rule the cable rantings.

We see FoxNews viewers are not tuning in to be informed.
They just like having their angry old views being validated, and to them, that’s entertainment.
Zermatt2

Larry Downes said:
greg454 is correct. It’s not that Americans aren’t interested in news, even international news. It’s that once we hear the same facts 15 times in one hour and a handful supposed experts making uninformed predictions, it’s time to move on. Wall to wall on one story is 1-boring, 2-sensationalism not news.

Not exactly. While I don’t necessarily care for reruns of the same news, I absolutely hate that Lockup show. It not only is not news; they must be in their 50th rerun for each program. It is sad that people chose to watch this far more than watching either Fox’s coverge or CNN’s coverage of the Egypt situation.
http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Jibladze/508257211 David Jibladze

I don’t really see as sad. People are jaded by the upheaval in this world (especially the middle east)…so they turn to something they rightly find fascinating – the prison life!