Thursday’s Ratings: Erin Burnett Continues To Be Cable’s Biggest Enigma

Nando Di FinoNov 11th, 2011, 6:36 pm

The roller coaster ride that is the “Erin Burnett Ratings Watch” continued on Thursday night, as Burnett attracted just 89,000 viewers in the 25-54 year old demo at 7 p.m., givng CNN a fourth-place finish in the time slot, behind Shepard Smith, Chris Matthews, and Jane Velez-Mitchell. Further confusing things? Burnett’s re-air at 11 p.m. pulled in 181,000 demo viewers, which beat first-runs of Piers Morgan Tonight and John King, USA, earlier in the evening on CNN.

Just to clear heads, some other nuggets from Thursday:

Laura Ingraham was again guest-hosting for Bill O’Reilly, and she managed to retain the top spot at 11:00 with the re-air (on Wednesday, she was beaten by Anderson Cooper‘s coverage of the Joe Paterno firing.

MSNBC had an exceptionally strong night, finishing in second place in every time slot except for 5 p.m., when Wolf Blitzer squeaked by Matthews. Every prime time show on MSNBC attracted 200,000 or more viewers in the demo.

Conversely, CNN’s only finish in the top two came in that 5 p.m. slot, with Blitzer’s 213,000 demo viewers.

Average Time Slot Finish:
Fox News: 1
MSNBC: 2.14
CNN: 3
HLN: 3.86

Here are the complete cable news ratings for Thursday night:

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

5 pm

The5

355

Blitzer

213

Matthews

200

Special

6 pm

Baier

530

King, USA

115

Sharpton

211

Prime

113

7 pm

Shep

489

Burnett

Matthews

254

Issues

155

8 pm

O’Reilly

613

Cooper

212

Schultz

291

Grace

191

9 pm

Hannity

586

Piers

175

Maddow

321

Dr. Drew

114

10 pm

Van Susteren

415

Cooper

265

O’Donnell

268

Behar

117

11 pm

O’Reilly

315

Burnett

181

Schultz

211

Showbiz

TOTAL DAY

321

141

168

PRIME TIME

538

218

297

138

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

TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD)

5 pm	The5 1,640	Blitzer 700	Matthews 931	Special 210
6 pm	Baier 2,236	King, USA 487	Sharpton 833	Prime 332
7 pm	Shep 1,890	Burnett 499	Matthews 979	Issues 377
8 pm	O’Reilly 2,791	Cooper 849	Schultz 1.069	Grace 656
9 pm	Hannity 2,228	Piers 873	Maddow 1,101	DrDrew 536
10 pm	Greta 1,647	Cooper 741	O’Donnell 978	Behar 525
11 pm	O’Reilly 1,043	Burnett 455	Schultz 623	Showbiz 359
TOTAL DAY	1,330	515	622	284
PRIME TIME	2,227	821	1,060	566
Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data