For all the talk of CNN turning its obsessive coverage of the missing Malaysian airliner into “big” ratings, the network still got crushed by Fox News last week.
You can double your ratings, but two times zero is still zero.
Here are the cable news ratings for last week. Fox wins the demo and doubles CNN in total viewers.
Total Day, March 17-21 | A25-54 / Total Viewers
FNC: 263,000 / 1,238,000
CNN: 230,000 / 660,000
MSNBC: 120,000 / 394,000
Primetime, March 17-21 | A25-54 / Total Viewers
FNC: 370,000 / 2,061,000
CNN: 321,000 / 842,000
MSNBC: 185,000 / 713,000
The mystery of Flight 370 has been a huge ratings draw for CNN. From the start of coverage on March 8, through Sunday, March 23 the network’s total day viewing is up +82% among total viewers and up +99% in the A25-54 demo. Fox News is flat, and up +9%, respectively, and MSNBC is down -8% and down -9%, in the same measurements.
Now that the missing airline mystery has likely been solved, we will see if CNN’s coverage was impressive enough to hold any of these viewers.
Recent history says no.
Another troubling fact for CNN is that not too long ago, CNN beat its competitors during big news events. That hasn’t been the case with Fox News in a while.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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