Buoyed by a big news month and left-wing competition in the form of an MSNBC incapable of anything approaching news gathering, CNN beat the “Lean Forward” channel for the third straight month and lifted its viewership considerably over last year. Fox News, however, is still beating CNN by a very wide margin.
Compared to July of 2012, CNN’s viewership increased+47% in total day and +69% in the 25-54 demo. Those numbers are a little deceiving because in July of 2012, CNN was experiencing abysmal ratings, which means it doesn’t take many viewers to give the network an impressive percentage boost.
The same is true for individual CNN programs, which also increased viewership.
In total day, an average of 520,000 viewers tuned in to CNN. By comparison, Fox News averaged 1.065 million viewers, over twice as many. (MSNBC could only pull in 380,000.)
Fox and CNN were much closer in the 25-54 demo.
During primetime, MSNBC isn’t far behind CNN; 672,000 to 583,000. As Breitbart News has noted previously, a look at primetime ratings over the last few days shows a nip-and-tuck battle between CNN and MSNBC.
The best news for CNN is “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” the only CNN show to win its time-slot in the 25-54 demo. Tapper even beat Fox News. This isn’t surprising. Tapper is one of the few mainstream media journalists universally respected, and “The Lead” quickly established itself as CNN’s only bright spot for intelligent, informed, and objective coverage.
Things are also looking up for CNN’s morning show “New Day.” Compared to Soledad O’Brien’s “Starting Point,” “New Day” is up +45% in total viewers and +30% in the 25-54 demo. In a press release, CNN brags that “New Day” is nipping on the heels of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” which slipped -4% last month.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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