George Clooney’s ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ Scores Big Ratings for CNN

The numbers are in, and CNN’s live broadcast of Good Night, and Good Luck — the Broadway play starring George Clooney as Edward R. Murrow — is a ratings winner.

According to data from Nielsen, Good Night, and Good Luck was the no. 1 show in all of cable on Saturday in total audience with 2.011 million viewers. And in the advertiser-coveted adults 25-54 demographic, the play scored an audience of 223,000 — good for no. 3 in the time slot on cable behind only ESPN and ESPN2.

Further, the play was a boon to the streaming service Max — the streaming service which, for the moment, shares a parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, with CNN. (The company announced a split yesterday, with CNN among the entities being spun off into a separate company.) Good Night, and Good Luck was the third-highest rated live CNN event on Max in all of 2025 — peaking at 67,000 viewers during the closing monologue shortly after 8:30 p.m. ET. And in total, according to a CNN press release, the production reached a combined 7.34 million total viewers on CNN, CNN International, Max, and CNN.com.

The play — which ran for just over 90 minutes without an intermission — depicted Murrow’s battle with Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy — whose efforts to root out communists were denounced by the legendary CBS newsman. Clooney co-wrote the play with his longtime writing partner Grant Heslov, and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor. The production closed with a matinee performance on Sunday at the Winter Garden Theatre.