Wednesday Ratings: CNBC’s Debate Rules The Night

Nando Di FinoNov 10th, 2011, 5:43 pm
 

We don’t usually get into the CNBC ratings, but it’s hard to ignore the performance of the network’s Your Money, Your Vote debate on Wednesday night. Not only did the debate’s ratings best every other show in prime time, it actually got stronger in its second hour, increasing from 947,000 viewers in the 25-54 year-old demo at 8 p.m. to 1.039 million at 9 p.m. It also pulled in 3.201 million total viewers for its first hour and 3.462 million in its second.

The bad news? The debate was just the sixth-highest, ratings-wise, in the crop of 2011 debates. Fox News still rules the roost with their September debate, while Wednesday’s CNBC debate fell between the ratings of CNN’s Tea Party debate and Fox News’ Republican debate in May.

Some other nuggets from Wednesday:

  • CNN scored a rare No. 1 win at 11 p.m. with Anderson Cooper‘s live coverage of Joe Paterno‘s firing. The FNC victim? A repeat of The O’Reilly Factor that was guest-hosted by Laura Ingraham.
  • HLN had been pulling out some second-and-third-place finishes over the last month, but they landed in fourth in every time slot on Wednesday.
  • The night after Nancy Grace was booted from Dancing With The Stars, she led the HLN pack, in terms of demo viewers, pulling in 141,000 at 8 p.m.

    • Average Time Slot Finish:
    Fox News: 1.14
    CNN: 2.43
    MSNBC: 2.43
    HLN: 4

    Here are the complete cable news ratings for Wednesday night:

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

    355

    		 Blitzer 

    130

    		 Matthews 

    170

    		 Special 

    76
    6 pm Baier 

    378

    		 King, USA 

    114

    		 Sharpton 

    198

    		 Prime 

    87
    7 pm Shep 

    456

    		 Burnett 

    138

    		 Matthews 

    228

    		 Issues 

    115
    8 pm O’Reilly 

    525

    		 Cooper 

    223

    		 Schultz 

    195

    		 Grace 

    141
    9 pm Hannity 

    444

    		 Piers 

    172

    		 Maddow 

    241

    		 Dr. Drew 

    115
    10 pm Van Susteren 

    415

    		 Cooper 

    346

    		 O’Donnell 

    275

    		 Behar 

    101
    11 pm O’Reilly 

    287

    		 Cooper 

    304

    		 Schultz 

    193

    		 Showbiz 

    99
    TOTAL DAY 283 157 136 90
    PRIME TIME 462 247 237 117
    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 

    1,651

    		 Blitzer 

    699

    		 Matthews 

    820

    		 Special 

    259
    6 pm Baier 

    2,247

    		 King, USA 

    584

    		 Sharpton 

    757

    		 Prime
    333
    7 pm Shep 

    2,035

    		 Burnett 

    480

    		 Matthews 

    902

    		 Issues 

    434
    8 pm O’Reilly 

    2,373

    		 Cooper 

    652

    		 Schultz 

    804

    		 Grace 

    603
    9 pm Hannity 

    1,775

    		 Piers 

    553

    		 Maddow 

    852

    		 DrDrew 

    487
    10 pm Greta 

    1,991

    		 Cooper 

    901

    		 O’Donnell
    1,115    		 Behar 

    427
    11 pm O’Reilly 

    1,029

    		 Cooper 

    666

    		 Schultz
    728    		 Showbiz 

    363
    TOTAL DAY 1,188 479 506 301
    PRIME TIME 2,048 702 924 498
    Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data

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