Tuesday Ratings: HLN’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Night

Nando Di FinoNov 16th, 2011, 5:06 pm
 

There are beatdowns, and then there is what happened to HLN on Wednesday night. The network finished fourth in every time slot except for Nancy Grace‘s (at 8 p.m.) in the 25-54 year-old demo. Five of its seven prime time shows failed to attract 100,000 demo viewers; no other show on any network dipped below 118,000. Erin Burnett‘s re-air out-rated every show on HLN’s schedule, outside of Grace’s.

This isn’t kicking HLN when the network is down — Vinnie Politan remains one of the most likable anchors on any channel, and Grace is absolutely sweet off-camera — but it’s hard to look at the ratings and not see anything but HLN’s dips. The good news? Ratings are a wildly unpredictable and erratic beast, and Wednesday night’s numbers could possibly see every HLN show finish about 130,000 in the demo and take some second-place finishes from CNN and MSNBC.

Tuesday, however, is just an ugly night that they’d probably like to forget.

Other nuggets from the numbers:

  • For as bad as HLN’s night was, Grace’s 244,000 demo viewers at 8:00 beat every non-Fox show, except for Rachel Maddow (9 p.m.) and Anderson Cooper (8 p.m.).
  • Of CNN’s three second-place finishes, two were compliments of Cooper, who had 261,000 at 8 p.m. and 231,000 at 10 p.m.
  • MSNBC’s only fourth-place finish on the night came in the nightmarish 8 p.m. slot. Ed Schultz, who attracted an otherwise-impressive 211,000 viewers, trailed Bill O’Reilly (735,000), Cooper, and Grace.

    • Average Time Slot Finish:

    Fox: 1
    MSNBC: 2.6
    CNN: 2.6
    HLN: 3.9

    Tuesday night’s full ratings:

    TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD)
    Fox News CNN MSNBC CNN Headline News
    5 pm The5 

    325

    		 Blitzer 

    128

    		 Matthews 

    173

    		 Special 

    50
    6 pm Baier 

    393

    		 King, USA 

    118

    		 Sharpton 

    170

    		 Prime 

    82
    7 pm Shep 

    397

    		 Burnett 

    141

    		 Matthews 

    180

    		 Issues 

    109
    8 pm O’Reilly 

    735

    		 Cooper 

    261

    		 Schultz 

    211

    		 Grace 

    244
    9 pm Hannity 

    595

    		 Piers 

    193

    		 Maddow 

    253

    		 Dr. Drew 

    96
    10 pm Van Susteren 

    353

    		 Cooper 

    231

    		 O’Donnell 

    193

    		 Behar 

    77
    11 pm O’Reilly 

    380

    		 Burnett 

    134

    		 Schultz 

    125

    		 Showbiz 

    78
    TOTAL DAY 323 136 131 77
    PRIME TIME 562 228 219 136
    Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.
    TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD)
    Fox News CNN MSNBC CNN Headline News
    5 pm The5 

    1,565

    		 Blitzer 

    551

    		 Matthews 

    944

    		 Special 

    182
    6 pm Baier 

    2,044

    		 King, USA 

    483

    		 Sharpton 

    893

    		 Prime
    234
    7 pm Shep 

    1,852

    		 Burnett 

    457

    		 Matthews 

    883

    		 Issues 

    507
    8 pm O’Reilly 

    3,290

    		 Cooper 

    781

    		 Schultz 

    1,065

    		 Grace 

    711
    9 pm Hannity 

    2,404

    		 Piers 

    612

    		 Maddow 

    1,087

    		 DrDrew 

    367
    10 pm Greta 

    1,895

    		 Cooper 

    585

    		 O’Donnell
    810    		 Behar 

    391
    11 pm O’Reilly 

    1,279

    		 Burnett 

    352

    		 Schultz
    431    		 Showbiz 

    278
    TOTAL DAY 1,295 400 504 233
    PRIME TIME 2,539 660 987 478
    Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data

    (Image credit: Damian Dovarganes)

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