CNN Tops Cable Ratings Amid World News Bounty – NYTimes.com

Great news about both the rise in ratings at CNN and their returned focus to hard news.  As a former news junkie, there just isn’t anything for me on TV anymore…

I like MSNBC, but they have to be the worst managed Network out there.  As their ratings started to improve, they let Keith get away.  And they basically ceded the weekends by putting that prison crap on all Saturday and Sunday.

They don’t seem to realize the Fox viewers just keep Fox on all the time.  I used to do that with CNN before it became so insipid.  MSNBC will never build that kind of loyalty when they aren’t even willing to program news all week….

Maybe CNN will come back to what it once was.  It would be nice to have at least one TV channel I could watch without wanting to throw things at the TV…

But that still won’t cure the issue with both the number of commercials and their vulgarity that appear on TV…but that’s another post….

CNN has been the big ratings gainer among the cable news networks during the extensive coverage of events in Japan and Libya in the last two weeks, and that success has come mostly at the expense of MSNBC, which has fallen into third place almost across the board because of CNN’s surge.

The disparity has been most noticeable during the last two weekends, when CNN has attracted huge audiences with continuing coverage of the international crises, beating even Fox News, the perennial leader among the news channels. Meanwhile MSNBC, sticking to a weekend lineup of recorded programs largely about problems in prisons, attracted only about a third as many viewers as CNN.

In prime time Saturday, CNN averaged 678,000 viewers among the audience most desired by news advertisers, ages 25 to 54. MSNBC averaged 254,000, while Fox News drew 353,000. On Sunday, CNN averaged 442,000 viewers; MSNBC, 298,000; and Fox News, 344,000.

Now CNN’s advantage has begun to carry over into weeknights. For more than two years, MSNBC has consistently beaten CNN in prime time on weeknights. But for March, CNN has moved ahead from 8 to 11 p.m., beating MSNBC in every hour among the 25-to-54 audience.

If the message seems to be that CNN cannot be matched in covering breaking international news, even MSNBC’s top executive is not disputing it.

“This is where CNN excels,” said Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC. “This is in their bull’s-eye, and they’ve done a great job. Even Fox News, which dominates them, gets beat by CNN at times like this.”

He called MSNBC’s weekend reliance on “Lockup,” its recorded documentary-style program about prisons, a “tricky situation.” He said, “This is our strategy for weekends, and it has worked well for us.” Its audience now “has an expectation” of seeing such programs on Saturday and Sunday nights, he said.

via CNN Tops Cable Ratings Amid World News Bounty – NYTimes.com.