CNN continued what has become a precipitous decline in ratings for its prime-time programs in the first quarter of 2010, with its main hosts losing almost half their viewers in a year.Behar is a piece of work. CBS Sunday Morning did a feature on her last weekend during which she described her opinions as "politically incorrect". Nothing could be further from the truth. She's as politically correct as they come - pure liberal. She certainly won't stand out from Rachel Maddow or any of the other nuts she'll compete with on CNN or MSNBC.
The trend in news ratings for the first three months of this year is all up for one network, the Fox News Channel, which enjoyed its best quarter ever in ratings, and down for both MSNBC and CNN.
CNN had a slightly worse quarter in the fourth quarter of 2009, but the last three months have included compelling news events, like the earthquake in Haiti and the battle over health care, and CNN, which emphasizes its hard news coverage, was apparently unable to benefit.
The losses at CNN continued a pattern in place for much of the last year, as the network trailed its competitors in every prime-time hour. (CNN still easily beats MSNBC in the daytime hours, but those are less lucrative in advertising money, and both networks are far behind Fox News at all hours.)
About the only break from the bad news for CNN was that March was not as bad as February, when the network had its worst single month in its recent history, finishing behind not only Fox News and MSNBC, but also its sister network HLN — and even CNBC, which had Olympics programming that month.
CNN executives have steadfastly said that they will not change their approach to prime-time programs, which are led by hosts not aligned with any partisan point of view.
But the numbers are stark: For the network’s longest-running host, Larry King, who has always been regarded at CNN as the centerpiece of prime time because he drew the biggest audiences at 9 p.m., the quarter was his worst ever.
Mr. King’s audience dropped 43 percent for the quarter and 52 percent in March. He dropped to 771,000 viewers for the quarter from 1.34 million in 2009. More alarming perhaps, Mr. King, whose show has been regularly eclipsed by Rachel Maddow’s on MSNBC (and is almost quadrupled by Sean Hannity’s show on Fox), is now threatened by a new host, Joy Behar on HLN (formerly Headline News.)
In her first full quarter competing with Mr. King at 9 p.m. Ms. Behar wound up beating him in the ratings 21 times.
As for Larry King, why would anyone watch the "King of Softball Questions"? His show is as old and tired as he is.
Fox understands what CNN doesn't -we're in a war for the future of this country. CNN has already surrendered. Fox has only begun to fight.
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2 comments:
Let's just let CNN die a quiet death. I have a neighbor who has his TV set to CNN almost all of the hours he is awake and I can attest to the fact that he is one
left-wing nut. When I try to talk to him about what all is going on in Congress he seems to be in a stupor and says, where in the world did you ever hear that. I tell him, if you only listen to CNN you aren't going to hear what is really going on and happening in the world today.
"Behar is a piece of work"
In the sense that the slag heap that used to be in Fontana was "a piece of work".
Wonder what happened to it.
And for the other Larry (we need a Daryll): I don't watch CNN since they covered the WMD's from Baghdad from GW1. Unless I am held captive in some waiting room.
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