In a repetition of a pattern that has become familiar for CNN, the surge of interest in breaking news that helped drive up its audiences has faded – and so have CNN’s ratings.
The cable news network’s prime-time lineup has not capitalized much on the attention its news coverage gained, returning for the most part to a steady finish in third place behind Fox News and MSNBC. The decline was illustrated by ratings from Wednesday night, when CNN lost across the board, finishing third in each of the three hours from 8 to 11 p.m.
Even Anderson Cooper, who saw his ratings and reputation revived by his widely praised reporting first from Egypt during the political rebellion and then from Japan after the earthquake and tsunami, dropped behind both
Greta Van Susteren on Fox and Ed Schultz on MSNBC on Wednesday night.
Mr. Cooper’s was the most competitive of the CNN prime-time shows, finishing with 865,000 total viewers and 280,000 in the audience preferred by news advertisers, those ages
of 25 to 54. Ms. Van Susteren, who has generally led the hour for several years but fell behind Mr. Cooper during the breaking news stories, had just over two million viewers and 423,000 in the 25 to 54 group.
But “The Ed Show” on MSNBC also moved ahead of Mr. Cooper. Mr. Schultz attracted 1.06 million viewers and 337,000 in the advertiser favored group.
In Mr. Cooper’s defense, he remains above his average a year earlier, and the shows before him on CNN on Wednesday performed so poorly, he started from a distant third position. “In the Arena,” the 8 p.m. CNN show, which had also enjoyed a ratings bump because of the breaking news, fell far behind its competitors on Wednesday.
The dominant cable news host, Bill O’Reilly on Fox, cruised as usual with more than three million viewers and 805,000 in the advertising sales group. MSNBC’s 8 p.m. host, Lawrence O’Donnell, who had fallen to third earlier, bounced back to a big margin over CNN, with just under one million viewers and 268,000 in the 25-54 group.
“In the Arena” trailed badly, with only 420,000 total viewers and just 117,000 in the preferred audience group. (The latter was also well behind Nancy Grace on HLN, who had 170,000.)
At 9, Piers Morgan had an especially weak show with Russell Brand as his guest. He had only 519,000 viewers and 177,000 from 25 to 54. He remains a significant improvement over Larry King in the 9 p.m. hour, but he fell far behind Rachel Maddow of MSNBC on Wednesday night.
Ms. Maddow had double the audience both in total viewers and those from 25 to 54. Sean Hannity was the easy winner, with 2.3 million viewers and 567,000 in the advertiser favored group.