CNN’s post-Trump viewership slump has worsened for the network which bills itself as “the most trusted name in news.”
During October, nearly every CNN program failed to reach 1 million viewers, apart from a CNN town hall event featuring Joe Biden, which still came in third that night behind Fox News and MSNBC, with a paltry total of 1.2 million viewers, according to Fox News.
CNN was routed in primetime by both Fox News and MSNBC in October. CNN averaged only 733,000 viewers, which was a 78 percent drop from January when Trump left the White House.
During the same month, Fox News averaged 2.6 million viewers in primetime while MSNBC averaged 1.5 million viewers in primetime. The liberal MSNBC network lost half their audience as well.
CNN performed even worse during the daytime, averaging a mere 480,000 viewers in October, a 76 percent drop from the final days of the Trump presidency.
Fox News averaged 1.4 million in the daytime, compared to MSNBC, which averaged 657,000 viewers during the same daytime hours.
The primetime trifecta of Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham destroyed CNN in the ratings, averaging 3.1 million, 2.7 million, and 2.2 million viewers, respectively.
In addition to a loss of interest in the news following Trump’s January departure from the White House, CNN has been rocked by negative headlines ranging from anchor Chris Cuomo being accused of sexual assault by a former ABC News producer, to podcast star Joe Rogan’s accusation that the network lied about his taking of ivermectin – which they claimed was strictly used for veterinary care as a horse dewormer.
CNN has been accused of overly negative reporting, which could be one factor leading to their basement-dwelling ratings.
Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld hypothesized that CNN’s ratings were low due to “cheer[ing] unpeaceful protests and the defunding of police, which creates a void where crime explodes, and then condemn those who fill the void. no wonder CNN’s credibility is now lower than their ratings.”
And the month of September wasn’t much better for the Atlanta-based network.
In September, CNN failed to reach one million viewers on any of its programs for 23 out of 30 days. To put this in perspective, CNN averaged 950,000 viewers last September during the final weeks of the 2020 election. This September, the network only averaged 557,000, which is a 41 percent decline.
President Trump once predicted mainstream media ratings would decline when he left the White House.
“Newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I’m not there, because, without me, their ratings are going down the tubes,” Trump said.
So far, Trump is right.
These are tough times for CNN indeed.
