Trump told the truth! Ex-POTUS really was box office as CNN and FOX viewership nosedive
The channel bashed former president Donald Trump left, right and center when he was in office and ironically, when he has left the White House, its viewership has slumped. According to data, CNN is losing around a million viewers on average every night since the Republican left office and is down by nearly 50 percent in the age group of 25-54.
Fox News on Wednesday, March 17, analyzed data of Nielsen Media research to present statistics that would leave the liberal network’s followers deeply worried. It said while CNN averaged 2.5 million primetime viewers between November 4, the day when President Joe Biden defeated Trump, and January 20, when the Democrat was sworn in, viewers started deserting it once Biden was in office and averaged only 1.6 million primetime viewers between January 21 till March 15. “CNN has been hemorrhaging viewers since former President Trump left office, losing roughly half of its audience in key measurables since January following a brief post-Election Day spike,” the Fox report said.
RELATED ARTICLES
Chris Cuomo tells Texas ex-mayor to be 'better leader', Internet asks if he meant it for 'his brother' Andrew
It was learnt that CNN’s viewership during 8-11 pm ET primetime hours went down by 36 percent since Biden’s inauguration after it saw a spike following Election Day. The channel’s primetime viewership decline was even bigger among those aged between 25 and 54 during the same period -- 47 percent. It has been reported that while CNN averaged 1.7 million viewers between November 4 and January 20, it went down to 1.1 million since the new president came -- marking a 34 percent drop. In the same period, CNN’s daily viewers among the key demographic group fell by 44 percent (from an average 483,000 to 272,000). Between December 28 and January 20, CNN averaged 2.2 million day viewers, partially because the viewers flocked to cable news for coverage of the January 6 Capitol riot and its aftermath. But the network has since averaged only 1.1 million viewers to see 48 percent decline.
Veteran British-American broadcast journalist Ted Koppel had once mocked CNN’s Brian Stelter when Trump was in office, telling the latter that “CNN’s ratings would be in the toilet without Donald Trump”. While Stelter didn’t agree with Koppel then, time has shown that his observation was not without a basis.
CNN slammed for Andrew Cuomo coverage
Besides the declining viewership, CNN has also been slammed for its handling of multiple scandals around embattled New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. “Cuomo Prime Time” host Chris Cuomo, the younger brother of Andrew, also faced flak over playful interviews of the governor last year and on the coverage of the nursing home deaths scandal or the multiple sexual harassment allegations against the Democrat.
Earlier in March, Jason Kilar, CEO of CNN’s parent company WarnerMedia said his company was “killing it” with viewership because of the Covid-19 pandemic. “It turns out the pandemic is a pretty big part of the news cycle and that's not going away any time soon,” he said at a press conference. “If you take a look at the ratings and the performance, it's going well. I think it's going well because A. the team at CNN is doing a fantastic job and B. it turns out the pandemic and the way that we can inform and help contextualize the business is really good for ratings.”
Variety reported on February 1 that CNN saw its viewership plunging alarmingly (around 44 percent) between January 25 and 29, the first week after Biden took the reins from Trump. MSNBC also saw a decline (18-19 percent) in its viewership. The Variety report said: “Variety Intelligence Platform’s analysis of the viewership data across two key metrics—the target news demographic for people ages 25 to 54, and the total audience watching — shows that CNN ended the final week of January with ratings dropping roughly 44% for total audience versus the prior week across all three hours of primetime.”
In another report end December last year, Variety said most major television outlets saw their ratings declining in 2020 except CNN, Fox and MSNBC. Fox, too, saw a dropping in its ratings. Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch recently said at Morgan Stanley's Technology, Media and Telecom Conference that the network’s total-day and prime-time ratings as of January dropped 13 percent since the presidential election. He said the Fox audience was “disappointed with the election results” but suggested the company was making a comeback.