The downward slide by CNN continued when a new episode of Piers Morgan Tonight at 9 PM drew in only 39,000 viewers in the Adult 25-54 age range. This news follows last months debacle which saw CNN record its lowest ratings in a decade.
The fall of CNN is, in part, due to the continuing split of political opinions in the country where people want news and opinion that closely matches their own. But it is mainly due to the rise and dominance of the Fox News Channel. Currently Fox News owns the top 13 spots in the race for the top rated programs on cable news. The 10:00pm re-run of Bill O’Reilly’s the O’Reilly Factor beat almost everything but demolished anything CNN had to offer.
The last time a CNN show had these kinds of terrible numbers in that weekday time slot was on August 22, 1997 during a Larry King show that only drew 50,000 viewers in the Adult 25-54 age range. The difference is that Larry King’s overall viewer numbers were 693,000, Morgan’s show only had a total viewership of 284,000. CNN seems to be on a sinking ship, and as one commenter on deadline.com put it:
“Please, please let this be the reason that they fire Piers Morgan. He is the anchor to their sinking ship. Truly the worst interviewer in the history of television. He makes Arsenio Hall look like Mike Wallace.”
