Casey Anthony Trial Gives Big Boost To Ratings For Nancy Grace, HLN

Cable news ratings, May 24, 2011:

•The murder trial of Casey Anthony, the Florida woman accused of killing her daughter, gave a huge boost to ratings for HLN, and in particular the network’s Nancy Grace, who jumped into second place in the 8 p.m. hour among both viewers 25-54 and total viewers. Grace had 376,000 viewers in the demo, easily beating MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell (291,000) and CNN’s In the Arena (160,000). Fox’s Bill O’Reilly finished first, with 612,000 viewers.

•With news and politics–tornadoes in the midwest and a special election in New York–on the front burner, the ten o’clock hour was especially competitive, with Fox, CNN and MSNBC all finishing within 25,000 viewers 25-54. FNC’s Greta Van Susteren won the hour with 330,000 viewers, followed by CNN’s Anderson Cooper (306,000) and MSNBC’s Ed Schultz, who was just behind Cooper with 305,000.

Here’s the full scoreboard: