After The Drama Of Japan, Egypt And Libya, A Tight Race For Second Place In The Ratings

Cable news ratings, April 7, 2011:

•After an extended period as the solid third place network in cable news, the recent worldwide rush of huge stories–Japan, Egypt, Libya and others–propelled CNN for weeks into second place behind the Fox News Channel, and some of CNN’s shows, like Anderson Cooper 360, found themselves beating Fox. The international stories have cooled, and so has some of CNN’s ratings power. But the network has not returned to the lows it was experiencing just a year ago. Ratings for CNN so far in 2011 are still up 57 percent from the second half of 2010–and 46 percent compared to 2010 as a whole.

Still, some have noted a drop in overnight ratings for some of CNN’s primetime shows, with Bill Carter in The New York Times reviewing one night of ratings in detail and concluding “the cable news network’s prime-time lineup has not capitalized much on the attention its news coverage gained, returning for the most part to a steady finish in third place behind Fox News and MSNBC. The decline was illustrated by ratings from Wednesday night, when CNN lost across the board, finishing third in each of the three hours from 8 to 11 p.m.”

Thursday night didn’t stick to that script, with CNN easily beating MSNBC in primetime and total day among viewers 25-54. Anderson Cooper, singled out by the Times for a third place finish Wednesday, was back solidly in second place Thursday, with 406,000 viewers 25-54, easily outpacing MSNBC’s The Ed Show (251,000) but behind Fox’s Greta Van Susteren, who had 505,000. Cooper’s second hour, at 11 p.m., finished first, ahead of Fox’s rebroadcast of The O’Reilly Factor.

Overall Thursday, Fox News took first place each hour from five p.m. through 10 p.m., and CNN and MSNBC split the second place finishes. It’s unfair to draw any reliable conclusions based on one night (Thursday), but the overall fight for second place seems far less decided than it’s been in a long time.

Here’s the full scoreboard:

TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD)
5 pm	Beck 450	Blitzer 181	Matthews 219	Showbiz 68
6 pm	Baier 444	Blitzer 203	Live 176	Prime 67
7 pm	Shep 444	King, USA 261	Matthews 220	Issues 108
8 pm	O’Reilly 638	InTheArena 218	O’Donnell 222	Grace 118
9 pm	Hannity 626	Morgan 321	Maddow 348	DrDrew 115
10 pm	Van Susteren 505	Cooper 406	Schultz 251	Behar 96
11 pm	O’Reilly 403	Cooper 408	O’Donnell 190	Showbiz 82
TOTAL DAY	365	211	155	106
PRIME TIME	590	320	273	108
Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.

TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD)
5 pm	Beck 2062	Blitzer 753	Matthews 797	Showbiz 138
6 pm	Baier 1990	Blitzer 647	Live 646	Prime 163
7 pm	Shep 1912	King, USA 670	Matthews 704	Issues 244
8 pm	O’Reilly 3009	InTheArena 724	O’Donnell 1041	Grace 343
9 pm	Hannity 2456	Morgan 852	Maddow 1309	DrDrew 295
10 pm	Van Susteren 2039	Cooper 1008	Schultz 901	Behar 330
11 pm	O’Reilly 1424	Cooper 1095	O’Donnell 530	Showbiz 206
TOTAL DAY	1483	602	557	216
PRIME TIME	2502	899	1085	317
Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data

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