Last Week's Ratings At A Glance

With Primary Night Covered Last Week
We’re Back to Weekly Ups and Downs in Cable News/Information

Every week doesn’t have to be stellar for a channel in cable news/information, but the primary helped all channels last week. Since we covered the PA primary results last week, there is no need to re-hash. Any researcher will tell you, one week does not make a channel, but developing trends and upswings or downswings over longer periods of time do matter. What are the cable channels thinking about now? -- How to preserve their increased viewership after the election. They would be well served to start strategizing that now and budgeting for it.

And let me try not to make any math errors this week…

Courtesy: CNN
8PM:^
Fox News: 459,000*
CNN: 187,000**
MSNBC: 315,000*

Each time period will have asterisks this week because of special programming; and all had primary coverage replace regular programming last Tuesday. Only Fox News is up over the week prior with Campbell Brown only airing three times – coded as Campbell Brown by CNN and Nielsen and Billo and COUNTDOWN airing 4 times due to primary coverage.

Courtesy: DC Fishbowl

9PM:^
Fox News: 371,000*
CNN: 301,000*
MSNBC: 151,000+

LKL once again is basically the same as the week prior with the other channels off of their previous week’s performance. HANNITY & COLMES did not have the big audience spike it had the week prior, and was pre-empted for primary coverage on Tuesday. Dan Abrams only aired three times this past week with primary coverage on Tuesday and a special HARDBALL on Wednesday.

10PM:^
Fox News: 336,000*
CNN: 307,000*
MSNBC: 158,000*

Well, GRETA is up and AC360 and the rebroadcast of COUNTDOWN are down from last week. This is just not unusual to have fluctuations and it doesn’t mean any program is trending down or up, weekly variances are par for the course. Friday, most of the primetime programs had losses of viewership. Three programs were up (Fox News), five programs were down (CNN and MSNBC) and one I would consider flat (Campbell Brown 8PM) with last week for this low viewership day.


Courtesy: CNN; PA Primary Night

TUESDAY was a great day for all cable news channels with CNN and MSNBC benefiting the most. Other than that, it was a fairly unremarkable week for cable news/information.


Courtesy: CNN – Plant in Peril

PLANET IN PERIL was re-broadcast again this past week in the 11PM EDT. Two nights out of four, it was #2 in the time period – not bad. What I did learn in going to the PIP section on the CNN site that only AC360 is carrying the PIP mini-stories this year.
RATINGS GURU

*4 day average; PA Primary aired Tuesday.
**3 day average; PA Primary aired Tuesday; Special aired Friday.
+3 day average; PA Primary aired Tuesday; Special HARDBALL aired Wednesday.
^Courtesy Nielsen Media Research; Adults 25-54 Live + Same Day (LS); Fast Track Nationals.


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