Sometimes, it takes new anchors time to gain ratings traction on a network. It is only reasonable, given the need for new faces to take hold.
Anderson Cooper is not exactly a new visage, especially at CNN. Since his on-site coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he has been one of the network’s stars — to the extent that stars can flourish these days at troubled CNN.
Now, things have deteriorated to the point where his new Sunday program is being trounced by a Fox News anchor who only appears on weekends and is best known for his staunchly conservative, no-holds-barred radio commentary.
According to Nielsen ratings, the debut of the much-hyped “The Whole Story With Anderson Cooper” on Sunday attracted only 496,000 viewers, with 85,000 in the 25-54 demographic.
Sundays at 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern, “Life, Liberty and Levin,” hosted by radio icon Mark Levin, attracted 1,389,000 viewers and 99,000 in the 25-54 demographic. This is significantly lower than its Fox News competitor.
While MSNBC’s “Mehdi Hasan Show” also beat CNN in total viewers in the time slot with 555,000, Anderson Cooper scored his only uncontested victory over any of the cable news industry’s major three by besting Hasan’s 35,000 viewers in the coveted 25-54 age bracket.
It’s also worth noting that, on the same night, deliberate fake news surpassed Cooper’s unacknowledged fake news, and on a premium channel no less: John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” on HBO Prime attracted 500,000 viewers, with 111,000 in the demographic.
The Hallmark Channel’s “Reba” (509,000 total viewers), a rerun of “Mike and Molly” (which ended in 2017) on TV Land (510,000 viewers), and a rebroadcast of English Premier League soccer on USA Network (515,000 viewers) also topped Anderson Cooper’s new Sunday program in terms of total viewers, albeit in different time slots.
Due to the time difference between the United States and England, these matches are broadcast at 9:00 a.m. Eastern on Sundays.
Yes, foreign soccer — the sport Americans pretend to like to appear vaguely cosmopolitan — got more people out of bed on a weekend morning than Anderson Cooper could get to watch his new Sunday show during prime time, when viewers are supposed to be wide awake and looking for something to watch.
CNN touted the new Cooper program in a March press release as “a collection of unique and immersive single-subject, one-hour episodes from CNN’s Emmy and Peabody Award-winning longform storytelling team.” media dissemination.
.@CNN’s Emmy and Peabody Award-winning longform storytelling team is coming to Sunday night with new and unique one-hour deep dives. #TheWholeStory with @AndersonCooper premieres Sunday, April 16 at 8pm ET/PT on CNN https://t.co/bvukCbLh8N pic.twitter.com/tuJutfsIw3
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) March 23, 2023
“Powered by CNN’s unmatched global journalism operation, ‘The Whole Story’ goes behind the headlines, touching every continent and corner of the planet, as we bring our viewers into the heart of the essential stories of our time,” CNN chairman and CEO Chris Licht, who has been desperately trying to juice ratings at the network since he took over last year, said in a statement.
The first episode was titled “The Trek: A Migrant Trail to America,” in which chief international security corresponded Nick Paton Walsh “embeds with a group of migrants on their arduous journey on foot through the Darien Gap, from South to Central America, on their way to seek asylum in the United States.”
More on this story via The Western Journal:
Future episodes will include “What Happened to San Francisco?” — a liberal network apparently has to ask this in a manner that’s in no way rhetorical — “Shaken: Baby Powder on Trial”, which will look at women who claim that talc baby powder marketed by Johnson & Johnson was a dangerous substance that caused their cancer, and “Magic Mushrooms,” in which David Culver surveys the world of psylocibin, taking viewers through the myths, the medicine, and the money surrounding the psychedelic plant” which contains a dangerous substance. CONTINUE READING…