Piers Morgan Leads All CNN Shows Friday Night, With Nearly One Million Total Viewers

Cable news ratings, July 27, 2011:

•CNN’s Piers Morgan may be getting unwanted attention for his past role as a tabloid newspaper editor–including time at the scandal-tarred and now defunct News of the World–but it’s not hurting his ratings. On Friday night, Piers Morgan Tonight hit a total audience of nearly one million viewers, and had an average audience of 300,000 viewers 25-54. That put the show just behind MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow (356,000), but well behind Fox’s Sean Hannity (531,000). Overall, PMT had the biggest ratings of the night on CNN, beating Anderson Cooper‘s AC 360.

•Among the key viewing group of adults 25-54, Fox’s Hannity edged The O’Reilly Factor Friday night, 531,000 to 509,000 at the top of FNC’s ratings performers. At the other end, The Five fared the worst with 268,000 viewers in the demo, though that was more than enough to win the five o’clock hour easily.

Here’s the full scoreboard: