Berman’s World, Land of Oz | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room

John Berman, guest-hosting 8 p.m. show Anderson Cooper 360, earned the number 1 spot in CNN’s ratings on Wednesday.

Berman drew 734,000 total viewers and 184,000 in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 age demographic on Wednesday. He placed behind his timeslot rivals Tucker Carlson and Chris Hayes in total viewers, but beat Hayes in the demo.

Anderson Cooper’s hour has emerged as the most-watched at CNN since Chris Cuomo, formerly the network’s 9 p.m. anchor and its top-rated host, found himself embroiled in a controversy that led to his firing earlier this month. For the month of November, Cooper had the most-watched show on CNN, averaging 786,000 viewers.

It appears that Berman – who anchors CNN morning show New Day – subbing in for Cooper kept those numbers up.

Here’s a full breakdown of Wednesday’s cable news ratings by show.

As for the three networks overall, here are the total day averages in total viewers and the 25-54 category.

Total viewers:
• CNN: 523,000
• Fox News: 1.69 million
• MSNBC: 866,000

25-54 Demo:
• CNN: 116,000
• Fox News: 284,000
• MSNBC: 101,000

Here are the prime time averages in total viewers and the 25-54 demo.

Total viewers:
• CNN: 674,000
• Fox News: 2.54 million
• MSNBC: 1.53 million

25-54 Demo:
• CNN: 159,000
• Fox News: 410,000
• MSNBC: 159,000

Read the full article, including top overall primetime averages, here from Mediaite+!

Dr. Mehmet Oz did not want to talk to New York Magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi for a profile on his run for Senate. But he ended up providing her with ample comments after trying and failing to hang up the phone when she called.

Nuzzi released a profile on Oz that kicked off with a description of the difficulties she faced in trying to interview anybody from his campaign. Because of the media reluctance of people on Oz’s team, Nuzzi decided to try contacting the television personality directly, along with his wife, Lisa Oz.

To Nuzzi’s surprise, Mrs. Oz did pick up the phone, but she hung up almost instantly. Nuzzi decided to call again to see if that was deliberate, and that led to a tense exchange between the two and an attempted hang-up.

As it turns out, Mrs. Oz did not hang up the phone as she thought, and what ensued was something amazing.

Nuzzi said Mrs. Oz “had mistakenly connected her device to what sounded like the sound system of a vehicle, meaning that as they engaged in paranoid conversation and argument for more than four minutes, I remained on the line, hearing every word of it.”

A sample:
“This f***ing girl reporter,” Mrs. Oz said. “This is the girl reporter who broke into some guy’s house and stole all his photo albums.” She was referring to an accusation made up by disgraced ex-Trump aide Corey Lewandowski in retaliation after I had reported details of his Single White Male obsession with a White House official.

It went on (and on and on) like that. After the call ended, Nuzzi’s phone rang again. “It was Lisa Oz,” she writes. “I picked it up and said hello. She paused, then she hung up on me. This time she was successful.”

It was an embarrassing and very public fail by the couple, both in that it happened and what they said.