Piers Morgan’s Best Ratings To Date: Promoting Last-Minute Sheen Booking Via Social Media

Cable news ratings, February 28, 2011:

•Monday night’s edition of Piers Morgan Tonight had a newsworthy guest, but no advance publicity. In fact, CNN didn’t know if Charlie Sheen would show for the live interview until he arrived at the studio in Los Angeles–four minutes before airtime. In the minutes before the show began, a flurry of messages through social media drove huge numbers of viewers to CNN. When it was over, Piers Morgan had his second-best showing ever among viewers 25-54, with 561,000, (and his second best showing in terms of total viewers, behind his debut with Oprah Winfrey) far ahead of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who had 282,000. The timeslot winner was Fox News’ Sean Hannity, comfortably in first place with 751,000. The booking–and the viral promotion–will certainly be evaluated at PMT, where executive producer Jonathan Wald tweeted this afternoon: “Incredible power of social media. Record ratings for @PiersTonight with no promotion whatsoever, just twitter/facebook, word of mouth.”

•Meanwhile, CNN’s rebranded 8 o’clock show, In the Arena with Eliot Spitzer, had a less than stellar first night, finishing in fourth place among viewers 25-54. The show had 124,000 viewers, coming in behind Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, and HLN’s Nancy Grace.

•Surprisingly, Sean Hannity, who didn’t even have a notable guest on last night or any abnormal promotion, had his highest program of 2011 in P2+ and 25-54 at the same time as his CNN counterpart Piers Morgan.

Here’s the full scoreboard:

TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD)
5 pm	Beck 577	Blitzer 205	Matthews 168	Showbiz 68
6 pm	Baier 469	Blitzer 165	Live 182	Prime 57
7 pm	Shep 645	King, USA 157	Matthews 200	Issues 106
8 pm	O’Reilly 909	InTheArena 124	O’Donnell 282	Grace 141
9 pm	Hannity 751	Morgan 561	Maddow 383	Missing 68
10 pm	Van Susteren 538	Cooper 430	Schultz 291	Behar 114
11 pm	O’Reilly 403	Cooper 207	O’Donnell 182	Showbiz 123
TOTAL DAY	395	202	151	104
PRIME TIME	736	372	319	105
Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.

TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD)
5 pm	Beck 2170	Blitzer 696	Matthews 710	Showbiz 214
6 pm	Baier 2194	Blitzer 682	Live 669	Prime 213
7 pm	Shep 2126	King, USA 542	Matthews 721	Issues 347
8 pm	O’Reilly 3417	InTheArena 548	O’Donnell 1146	Grace 596
9 pm	Hannity 2621	Morgan 1346	Maddow 1198	Missing 333
10 pm	Van Susteren 1756	Cooper 995	Schultz 1005	Behar 308
11 pm	O’Reilly 1251	Cooper 501	O’Donnell 647	Showbiz 264
TOTAL DAY	1454	604	562	261
PRIME TIME	2603	963	1116	403
Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data