OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
CNN’s ratings have been in a freefall ever since former President Donald Trump left office, but the network got even more bad news this week as a new CEO is set to take over early next month.
The New York Post reported: “The cable news network logged its worst weekend ratings on record in the all-important 25- to 54-year-old demo, according to the latest Nielsen data. CNN — which launched in 1980 and bills itself as ‘the most trusted name in news’ — totaled just 55,000 viewers for its weekend slate of shows that include Sunday political programs ‘State of the Union with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash,’ and ‘Fareed Zakaria GPS.’ The network’s Sunday primetime lineup, which featured ‘The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper’ and ‘Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy,’ drew 43,000 in the demo.”
The outlet went on to report that the dismal weekend showing is the worst for CNN since 1991, the earliest point at which television viewership data is readily available.
The report said that CNN’s overall viewership was not much better, logging around 345,000 total viewers, well behind Fox News’ 683,000 and left-wing MSNBC’s 424,000.
“Fox won the battle in the key demo as well, drawing 75,000 viewers to top MSNBC’s 47,000, which finished behind CNN,” The Post noted.
One insider told The Post: “CNN is a ratings embarrassment. At least with Thompson, they will have a direction.”
Thompson is the former CEO of The New York Times Company. He was picked to become CNN’s new chairman last month by parent company Warner Bros. Discovery after Chris Licht’s short-lived stint that industry insiders saw as a disaster.
That said, CNN did get a ratings bump just recently — when the network hosted a town hall-style event feature former President Donald Trump.
The event took place in May and was hosted live at a venue in New Hampshire, where the first GOP primary will be held early next year. Trump, so far, is the dominant frontrunner in the Republican field of declared and undeclared candidates.
Liberals and left-wing Democrats were angry at CNN for giving Trump air time, but by any measure, it was a ratings hit for the network, which has regularly placed third behind Fox News and MSNBC, though the latter has scored higher in prime time after Fox dismissed ratings king Tucker Carlson last month.
According to The Hill, the town hall drew in more than 3 million viewers, which was more than three times the normal viewership for the prime-time slot.
Trump, on the other hand, praised CNN on his Truth Social platform, writing: “People are criticizing CNN for giving me a Forum to tell the TRUTH. I believe it was a very smart thing that they did, with Sky High Ratings that they haven’t seen in a very long time. It was by far the biggest Show of the night, the week, and the month!”
“The Radical Left screamed, ‘Take it down, take it down,’ during the Show, because they saw that I was making so many important points on the Border, Energy Independence, the Afghanistan Catastrophe, Inflation, the Economy, Russia/Ukraine, and so much more. Many minds were changed on Wednesday night by listening to Common Sense, and sheer ‘Brilliance,’” Trump noted in a follow-up post.
However, according to The Hill, a lot of the network’s talent expressed anger and resentment at CEO Chris Licht’s decision to feature Trump.
CNN faced both political and media controversy as Trump disregarded moderator Kaitlan Collins’s attempts to fact-check a series of statements he made during the event while the crowd present at the town hall strongly expressed their support for the Republican candidate, further angering insiders.
“It was a total debacle, and I’ve never been more ashamed to work at CNN,” one prominent on-air talent at the network told The Hill on Thursday. “I don’t think anybody came out looking good. This is entirely a corporate and management failure. They should have anticipated how out of control Trump would be … to think he was going to act more presidential in that kind of setting is just naivety on a galactic scale.”
