MSNBC Falls To Fourth Place In Cable News Ratings
MSNBC dropped to fourth place in the cable news ratings for the month of May, clocking in with some of its lowest viewership in history.
Fox News continues to dominate the cable news environment, but HLN actually finished second, apparently as a result of wall-to-wall Jodi Arias coverage. HLN sister network CNN finished third, but second place in prime time. In evening prime time, Fox News had 1,973,000 total viewers, up 17 percent from last May, but down about five percent in the 25-54 cohort. CNN improved to 660,000 total viewers in prime time, up an impressive 70 percent from last year at this time. MSNBC had comfortably been in second place.
MSNBC, which many feel is a 24-hour infomercial for the Obama administration and whose slogan is “lean forward,” seems to be actually leaning backward in the ratings. “Averaging 539,000 viewers in primetime and 175,000 viewers in the adults 25-54 demographic, MSNBC suffered double-digit drops from last May — down a respective 20 and 19 percent.”
Some of the problems with MSNBC are being laid at the doorstep of Chris Hayes, who is the host of All In, a show that apparently very few viewers are “in” to: “Hayes, down 32 percent in total viewers from The Ed Show last May, has offered a poor lead-in for MSNBC’s prime time flagship, The Rachel Maddow Show, at 9 p.m. The show delivered its lowest-rated month since it debuted in September 2008 (717,000 total viewers) and its second lowest with adults 25-54 (210,000).”
As The Inquisitrpreviously reported, Fox lost a lot of eyeballs in the aftermath of the presidential election, but seems to be climbing back to its usual dominance. Part of the disillusionment with the network was that it kept trotting out Dick Morris and Karl Rove and others to make lousy predictions on how the vote would turn out. Given the scandals engulfing the Obama administration, viewers seem to be returning to FNC, however. Perhaps the reverse is occurring among MSNBC viewers for the same reason.
Do you think MSNBC finished in fourth place because of coverage of the Jodi Arias trial on the other networks or are there other reasons for the network’s sharp decline?
