Cable news ratings, May 4, 2010: Check out the highlights, and see the full ratings below:
• With two major stories in the news Tuesday, the Times Square bombing plot and the oil spill, CNN ratings improved drastically, most notably in prime time. They weren’t competing with Fox News for first place (although it got close in a couple hours), but they jumped ahead of MSNBC for 2nd place in almost every category. Here’s a breakdown:
• Wolf Blitzer‘s 6pmET hour of The Situation Room was CNN’s best in the demo, finishing 2nd by just 4,000. John King the next hour more than doubled Chris Matthews in the demo the next hour. All the CNN prime time hosts (Campbell Brown, Larry King) topped their MSNBC competitors in the demo, and Anderson Cooper beat MSNBC in total viewers as well.
• Joy Behar on HLN performed well Tuesday also, finishing 2nd at 9pmET (behind just FNC) in the demo and had the most total viewers of all shows on HLN.
• Rachel Maddow‘s 11pmET repeat topped all other programs on the network in the demo, and finished 2nd in the hour behind FNC.
• Bill O’Reilly had the top show on all of cable news – Glenn Beck was #2 in both categories.
| TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD) | ||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| 5 pm |
Beck 532 |
Blitzer 301 |
Matthews 146 |
Showbiz 109 |
| 6 pm |
Baier 360 |
Blitzer 356 |
Ed Show 149 |
Prime 155 |
| 7 pm |
Shep 378 |
King, USA 279 |
Matthews 132 |
Issues 180 |
| 8 pm |
O’Reilly 589 |
Brown 208 |
Olbermann 182 |
Grace 244 |
| 9 pm |
Hannity 424 |
King 263 |
Maddow 230 |
Behar 268 |
| 10 pm |
Greta 413 |
Cooper 324 |
Olbermann 217 |
Grace 280 |
| 11 pm |
O’Reilly 489 |
Cooper 192 |
Maddow 238 |
Showbiz 194 |
| TOTAL DAY | 316 | 225 | 122 | 163 |
| PRIME TIME | 476 | 265 | 210 | 261 |
| Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data. | ||||
| TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD) | ||||
|
|
|
|
|
| 5 pm |
Beck 2084 |
Blitzer 769 |
Matthews 589 |
Showbiz 228 |
| 6 pm |
Baier 1865 |
Blitzer 795 |
Ed Show 679 |
Prime 324 |
| 7 pm |
Shep 1573 |
King, USA 646 |
Matthews 629 |
Issues 408 |
| 8 pm |
O’Reilly 2436 |
Brown 602 |
Olbermann 910 |
Grace 645 |
| 9 pm |
Hannity 1888 |
King 944 |
Maddow 959 |
Behar 811 |
| 10 pm |
Greta 1666 |
Cooper 951 |
Olbermann 743 |
Grace 621 |
| 11 pm |
O’Reilly 1525 |
Cooper 524 |
Maddow 528 |
Showbiz 466 |
| TOTAL DAY | 1202 | 594 | 425 | 347 |
| PRIME TIME | 1997 | 832 | 871 | 689 |
| Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data. | ||||
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