Cable news ratings, February 3, 2011:
•It’s turning into a banner week for the oft-bashed CNN show Parker Spitzer. Again Thursday, Eliot Spitzer hosted the show and focused on breaking news from Egypt. (Kathleen Parker, the show’s co-host, has not been on the show all week–out sick, say CNN execs) Fast-paced and newsy, Parker Spitzer sans Parker beat MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell with 325,000 viewers 25-54 Thursday–93,000 more viewers than O’Donnell.
The week’s ratings wins mark Parker Spitzer‘s best ratings since the show’s launch last year–by a lot. The show’s highest average rating in 2010 was 159,000. In January the numbers bumped up to 174,000, though that was not enough to pull the show out of third place. This week, the average rating is over 274,000. That represents a 68 percent jump from last week, when Parker was on the set. Surely the news from Egypt is the largest factor in the jump, but not having one’s face on the air when your show is hitting its highest viewership; well, that could make you sick.
•MSNBC again found its entire revamped primetime lineup in third place Thursday, with Rachel Maddow falling behind CNN’s Piers Morgan among both viewers 25-54 and total viewers, and Ed Schultz a distant third at 10 p.m., 280,
Here’s the full scoreboard:
| TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD) | ||||
| 5 pm | Beck 570 | Blitzer 236 | Matthews 133 | Showbiz 81 |
| 6 pm | Baier 466 | Blitzer 277 | Live 111 | Prime 113 |
| 7 pm | Shep 631 | King, USA 261 | Matthews 151 | Issues 165 |
| 8 pm | O’Reilly 677 | ParkerSpitzer 325 | O’Donnell 232 | Grace 161 |
| 9 pm | Hannity 660 | Morgan 392 | Maddow 291 | Missing 151 |
| 10 pm | Van Susteren 443 | Cooper 446 | Schultz 166 | Behar 67 |
| 11 pm | O’Reilly 326 | Cooper 374 | O’Donnell 139 | Showbiz 103 |
| TOTAL DAY | 380 | 270 | 127 | 122 |
| PRIME TIME | 594 | 388 | 230 | 122 |
| Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data. | ||||
| TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD) | ||||
| 5 pm | Beck 2359 | Blitzer 773 | Matthews 672 | Showbiz 191 |
| 6 pm | Baier 2384 | Blitzer 817 | Live 515 | Prime 208 |
| 7 pm | Shep 2156 | King, USA 762 | Matthews 665 | Issues 385 |
| 8 pm | O’Reilly 2811 | ParkerSpitzer 951 | O’Donnell 1085 | Grace 522 |
| 9 pm | Hannity 2326 | Morgan 1138 | Maddow 1113 | Missing 440 |
| 10 pm | Van Susteren 1763 | Cooper 1181 | Schultz 708 | Behar 294 |
| 11 pm | O’Reilly 1045 | Cooper 848 | O’Donnell 479 | Showbiz 265 |
| TOTAL DAY | 1500 | 737 | 518 | 285 |
| PRIME TIME | 2312 | 1090 | 969 | 409 |
| Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data | ||||