With the Boston Marathon bombing story simmering down, when it comes to total-day viewers, CNN is crashing back to earth and Fox News is on the rise.
TV by the Numbers reports that last week, Fox News’s primetime viewership actually boosted the channel two spots, to third place (in all of basic cable). MSNBC went jumped a spot, from 30th to 29th. The real news, however, is the collapse of CNN. After a few good ratings weeks surrounding the terror attack, CNN cratered from 19th place all the way down to 31st.
In total-day viewers, Fox held on to fourth place, MSNBC rose one spot to 33rd place, and CNN again plummeted — this time from 16th to 27th place.
This is terrible news for CNN. There is little doubt the network hoped that in the wake of Boston, viewers who tuned in might remember what they once liked about the network. From the looks of it, just the opposite occurred.
The news isn’t much better for MSNBC — unless you think you can dine off beating a loser like CNN by one or two slots.
Via TVNewser, a look at Friday’s ratings help to add a little more context to what is happening. As far as total viewers, the only primetime CNN winner was Anderson Cooper over MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. In the key 25-54 demo, CNN’s Jake Tapper beat MSNBC’s Martin Bashir, and Cooper again beat Hayes, but other than that, CNN is back in last place.
News viewers seem less interested in gun control lies and the Jodi Arias trial than actual news about Benghazi.
Who knew!
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC