Thursday Ratings: Anderson Cooper Flies High At 10

by Nando Di Fino | 10:16 pm, December 9th, 2011

» 9 comments

It’s no secret that ratings are a fickle beast. One night, you’re toasting with friends about the 230,000 viewers in the 25 to 54 year-old demo who tuned in to see your interview with, say, Hulk Hogan‘s ex-wife; the next, you hang your head low at the 124,000 who wanted to see you talk with some foreign head of state. These numbers, in short, make little sense. And that’s what makes it fun — the random aberrations that occur every night.

Take, for instance, AC 360. At 8 p.m., the show lost a remarkably tight race for second place to Ed Schultz and Nancy Grace, with 166,000 demo viewers. But at 10 p.m., Anderson Cooper became a ratings monster*, pulling in 258,000 viewers, almost beating Joy Behar and Lawrence O’Donnell combined in the same time slot. He not only dominated CNN’s stable of anchors, but beat out every show on MSNBC and HLN, as well.

*-Non-Fox News Division

Some other nuggets from Thursday night:

While Cooper took the Thursday night CNN title, Wednesday night’s victor was Erin Burnett. On Thursday, she was exceptionally strong at 11 p.m., pulling in 140,000 demo viewers, while Ed Schultz attracted 94,000 and Showbiz Tonight had 66,000.

Fox News’ late night guilty pleasure, Red Eye, makes the occasional cameo here, and they’re popping up today because they’re on a bit of a run — over a seven-show stretch the last two weeks, the program averaged 208,000 demo viewers. For five straight days, the show averaged more demo viewers than John King USA, Dylan Ratigan, and OutFront, among many others.

In other Fox News… er, news, Sean Hannity made an admirable charge at Bill O’Reilly‘s ratings dominance on Thursday, getting 559,000 viewers to O’Reilly’s 628,000. Naturally, instead of this being the start of a trend, the gap will likely re-widen once Friday’s numbers are released. But we figured an official Nugget Hat Tip to Hannity was at least in order for coming surprisingly close to the King of Ratings.

Here are the complete cable news ratings for Thursday night:

TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD)

5 pm

The5

325

Blitzer

146

Matthews

167

Special

6 pm

Baier

383

King, USA

Sharpton

155

Prime

7 pm

Shep

436

Burnett

Matthews

165

Issues

150

8 pm

O’Reilly

628

Cooper

166

Schultz

179

Grace

172

9 pm

Hannity

559

Piers

198

Maddow

199

Dr. Drew

104

10 pm

Van Susteren

409

Cooper

258

O’Donnell

162

Behar

124

11 pm

O’Reilly

402

Burnett

140

Schultz

Showbiz

TOTAL DAY

302

148

125

PRIME TIME

532

208

108

128

Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.

TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD)

5 pm	The5 1,571	Blitzer 810	Matthews 732	Special 271
6 pm	Baier 2,076	King, USA 516	Sharpton 701	Prime 341
7 pm	Shep 1,835	Burnett 473	Matthews 743	Issues 385
8 pm	O’Reilly 3,170	Cooper 603	Schultz 881	Grace 515
9 pm	Hannity 2,194	Piers 830	Maddow 908	DrDrew 336
10 pm	Greta 1,571	Cooper 711	O’Donnell 843	Behar 411
11 pm	O’Reilly 1,124	Burnett 425	Schultz 485	Showbiz 164
TOTAL DAY	1,353	528	506	286
PRIME TIME	2,320	716	877	413
Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data

CNN, fox news, HLN, msnbc, Ratings

Moderate

“Red Eye — over a seven-show stretch the last two weeks, the program averaged 208,000 demo viewers.”

The people at CNN and MSNBC should be holding their head in shame, that is unbelievable.
Anonymous

Why not save space an report in very simple terms something like this!
Fox continues to laugh at all the others.
,
Anonymous

How is Anderson Cooper flying high, when Greta is still beating him in the ratings??!! What a misleading headline!
Anonymous

Flying High? I don’t think so–Greta beats him like a drum.
Anonymous

Red Eye it seems beats many of the night time shows in the Demo and they are on at 3 a.m. Talk about sad……
Librablue

Why is it that Mediaite only reports on Anderson’s ratings when they are good? He bombed on Wednesday. This post should have been titled “If O’Reilly and Van Susteren were dead, Anderson Cooper would have been flying high at 10pm.”

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cable-news-ratings-ednesday-december-7_b101830#more-101830
http://hotair.com/ StewartIII

Greta Van Susteren: Silly headlines? You have to wonder if Mediaite is on CNN’s payroll
http://gretawire.foxnewsinsider.com/2011/12/10/silly-headlines-you-have-to-wonder-if-mediaite-is-on-cnns-payroll/
Misty Jean Moore

Do people really care about news ratings even when most people don’t watch them? Let’s compare Cnn/Msnbc/Fox to Nickelodeon or MTV.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_76F7SAA3N35X4IBY5BGVQML2YM James

“Made little sense?” What are you nuts? If Cooper could have the Top 10 most photographed by paparazzi plus Kim Kardashian every night he’d be able to have an all-boy harem serving him tea on air while he wears a Burger King cardboard crown. What kind of ratings do you think a reality show about a foreign dignitary would have? Even pitching it would probably constitute cause for firing. Patpong Road isn’t known for its poetry readings: once you’ve ferreted this out, you’ll be well on your way.