CNN reached another new low last month as the network saw its July ratings down by double digits across the board,
TVNewser.com reported.
Compared to July 2011, the network is 20 percent down in total viewers and 23 percent in the key 25-54 demographic. Primetime numbers sank 23 percent in total Viewers and 26 percent in the 25-54 demographic, TVNewser.com reported.
For their primetime stars, the numbers are just as bad. Erin Burnett’s 7 pm show is down 21 percent compared the slot’s former occupier John King. Piers Morgan’s show sunk 18 percent and 24 percent among the 25-54 demographic. Anderson Cooper’s 10 pm show saw a whopping 34 percent drop in total viewers compared to last July and 36 percent among 25-54 year-olds. His 8 pm “AC 360” show, however, saw a 6 percent uptick among 25-54 year olds.
Just this week, CNN found itself on the defense again after it played a song called “Stupid Girls” ahead of a segment about Sarah Palin visiting a Texas Chick-fil-A restaurant. The beleaguered network later said the use of the song was unintentional and not meant as a commentary on the former Republican vice presidential candidate.
The new ratings plunge is consistent with CNN’s steep ratings slide of late. Its president, Jim Walton, who presided over the once-dominant cable-news business as it lost viewers to Fox News, will resign after almost a decade in the job, saying the network needs “new thinking.”
CNN’s prime-time viewership has dropped 8 percent to 627,000 on average this season through mid-May, compared with a year earlier, according to Nielsen. CNN now ranks far behind News Corp.’s Fox News, which drew an average prime-time viewership of 1.85 million in the same period.
In recent years, the network struggled to find a formula that connected with viewers. It also made a major gaffe last month, reporting incorrectly that the U.S. Supreme Court found a central piece of Obamacare to be unconstitutional.
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