Over the past month, CNN’s three-year credibility collapse went from a slow-motion trainwreck to something that is now completely out of the left-wing network’s control. Because there is obviously something very wrong with the climate fostered by CNN chief Jeff Zucker, no fewer than five CNN staffers (in as many weeks) have had to be terminated over various strains of Trump derangement syndrome. These terminations include CNN star Kathy Griffin, host Reza Aslan, a Pulitzer finalist, and an outright Pulitzer winner. The Least Trusted Name In News now has another serious problem: its ratings are in the toilet.
While CNN’s serial-credibility scandals show no signs of slowing down, over the past five days, things got as bad as they have ever been. James O’Keefe caught a senior CNN producer admitting on video that the network knows the Trump/Russia hoax is exactly that. Moreover, the fallout surrounding CNN’s fake news epidemic continues to rain down, especially from the victim of all this fake news, President Trump. Worse still, for whatever reason, CNN believes it is a good idea to turn its White House correspondent Jim Acosta into an insufferable crybaby.
In the middle of this Fake News Typhoon came the numbers… Awful news about CNN’s ratings, including a humiliating loss to MSNBC that seemed impossible only a few months ago.
For instance, on Tuesday, over the course of the day, CNN was only able to attract a measly 670,000 viewers. For context, MSNBC nearly doubled this number; Fox News nearly tripled it. CNN has almost always lagged a bit behind MSNBC in total viewers, but not like this.
These numbers are even worse than Monday’s where CNN was only able to attract 726,000 viewers.
But that is just two days. How well is CNN doing over the long-term? In a word: terrible.
Over the entire second quarter of 2017, looking at total viewers, only one CNN program placed in the top 20 of all cable news shows, and that was Anderson Cooper’s 360, which landed with a thud at number 20. For perspective, a repeat of Tucker Carlson’s Fox New hour attracted more viewers than any show on CNN.
Furthermore, throughout this same quarter, CNN lost to MSNBC in total and primetime demo viewers. This is the first time since 2014 that CNN has lost that demo crown to its leftwing rival. In total viewers last quarter, among all cable news channels, Fox News placed first, MSNBC third, and CNN is all alone in tenth place, just barely ahead of Investigative Discovery, a second-tier offshoot of the Discovery Network.
CNN now has two major problems. First, most of the country is right-of-center and that large swath wants nothing to do with these serial liars. But that is an age-old problem. CNN’s latest problem is with Leftists, who not only have an alternative with MSNBC, but who are almost certainly tired of all the fake news CNN pushes — fake news that gets their hopes up that Trump’s impeachment is imminent; fake news that only ends up further crushing their hopes and dreams.
CNN no longer has any base of support.
Worse still, CNN will never recover from their credibility collapse unless drastic changes are instituted, starting with the firing of Zucker, who has single-handedly decimated CNN’s residual credibility in just a few short years.
In the past, Zucker could at least claim his approach had improved CNN’s ratings in the advertiser-coveted age demo. But with just 670,000 total viewers and a credibility crisis unlike anything since Rathergate, CNN no longer has what a news outlet most covets: the ability to influence and shape public opinion.
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