Behind That Bogus CNN Ratings Story

I guess it’s all relative. Huffington Post has declared that CNN is back. According to the article:

A funny thing happened on cable news last week: CNN — yes, the beleaguered, ratings-starved, down the middle cable news network that just can’t find an audience — scored major ratings victories over Fox News and MSNBC.

Let’s take that statement apart.

“Beleaguered” – I’m down with that, CNN certainly qualifies as beleaguered.

“Ratings-starved” – We’re two-for-two HuffPo — one more and we start shopping for furniture in the Village.

“Down the middle” – Oh, sorry, so sorry. Just because CNN is less liberal, less Progressive than MSNBC does not qualify them for “Down The Middle” status. The CNN regular contributor list reads like David Plouffe‘s Buddy List — former Clinton-Gore hacks Paul Begala, Donna Brazile, and James Carville spend so much time on CNN most viewers think they are full time employees.

HuffPo went further in its detailed, backhanded compliments:

CNN’s ratings successes continued into the evening last week, as well. “Anderson Cooper 360” regularly beat the 10PM repeat of MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” (a feat it did not manage in April), and “Campbell Brown” even topped the original “Countdown” run on Tuesday. “John King USA” saw its best numbers since it launched, and beat MSNBC’s “Hardball” rerun three days in a row.

So we’re trumpeting the news that “A.C. 360” managed to beat a repeat of Olbermann’s nightly rantfest? That’s worthy of a press release, I guess. But it is odd that there is no mention of Fox News, the real winner in the nighttime ratings battle, just a statement that CNN beat MSNBC. Curious.

And CNN must have read the HuffPo story and they smelled blood in the water. Absent a genuine breaking news story they have resurrected the old standard issue that always excites the base – Obama’s Birth Certificate. The issue of the President’s birthplace was always a fringe issue, and one that both Robert Gibbs and Glenn Beck agree on… they both see it as a waste of valuable time. (Although one suspects they would use the time to accomplish some very different tasks.)

So why did Anderson Cooper set up a confrontation over Obama’s birth certificate with Lt. Col. Terry Larkin and his attorney? It makes good television, no? And I’m betting that it’s gonna destroy that 10 p.m. repeat of Olbermann’s “Countdown.”

Could CNN’s brief flirtation with mid-day mediocrity have anything to do with the latest breaking news mentality surrounding the Gulf Oil Spill and the Times Square Bombing Attempt? No matter, the fact lost in all of this is that aside from one or two flashes of success in some isolated daytime hours, MSNBC and CNN’s numbers could be combined and still not match the Fox News numbers.