CNN’s ongoing ratings win streak continued apace in daytime on Friday in the coveted 25 – 54 age demographic, but the surge of viewers drawn to breaking coverage of the George Floyd protests seen in the previous week-and-a-half noticeably ebbed. As a result, Fox News recaptured the primetime lead in the demo, adding to its wins in overall viewers in all dayparts on Friday.
After posting huge ratings victories across daytime and primetime in the demo over the previous week, CNN’s average daytime numbers only reached 384,000 on Friday, a drop of more than 200,000 A25 – 54 viewers from Tuesday. Still, it was good enough to notch another victory over Fox News, which came in with 352,000 and MSNBC trailed with 211,000. CNN’s daytime win was led by its 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. versions of CNN Newsroom, which gained 417,000 and 457,000 in the demo respectively.
That network’s primetime numbers also fell back to Earth, with two of CNN’s shows — Anderson Cooper
An even more notable reversion to previous ratings trends was evident in the total audience picture. Fox News handily took the daytime title with 1.99 million overall viewers and romped in primetime with 3.85 million. CNN took second in daytime with 1.41 million total viewers and MSNBC trailed slightly behind with 1.39 million. In primetime, MSNBC jumped over CNN with 2.42 million to 2.00 million, respectively. Fox News was paced by its 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. flagship programs, which shared the overall cable news ratings title with 4.07 million viewers each. MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show led the non-Fox News competition in primetime with 3.15 million.