Nolte: CNN’s Jake Tapper Has Lost Nearly 1/3 of His Audience

Throughout all of May last year, CNN’s Jake Tapper averaged 1.091 million total viewers and 304,000 viewers in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 age demo. So far, this year, through the 16th of May those numbers have cratered by nearly a third.

Tapper’s demo viewers have sunk to an average of just 206,000, a -32 percent decline. His total viewers collapsed to just 785,000, a -28 percent fall.

According to CNN’s own press release, during May of 2017, the left-wing anchor was flying pretty high in his 4 p.m. ET timeslot: Tapper “was #1 in cable news this month in the all-important demo 25-54” and “ranked #2 in total viewers, easily topping MSNBC.”

What a difference a year makes.

In demo viewers, Tapper is now in last place when compared to Fox News (252K), and even MSNBC (232K).

The real shocker comes with the comparison of total viewers. Over at Fox, Neil Cavuto is nearly doubling Tapper with an average of  some 1.4 million viewers (compared to Tapper’s 785K). At MSNBC, Nicole Wallace, who has no journalism experience whatsoever, is walloping former-White House correspondent Tapper with an average of 1.245  million total viewers.

To be fair, Tapper’s ratings woes are in part tied to the fake news albatross that is the far-left CNN. CNN’s well-documented and ongoing credibility problems have devastated the anti-Trump channel’s ratings, which have already collapsed by some -30 percent this month.

Nevertheless, Tapper has suffered from some credibility scandals of his own, including his self-destructive refusal to separate himself from the sinking ship that is CNN.

Before CNN chief Jeff Zucker came along, Tapper made his reputation standing apart from the rest of the establishment media, a largely left-wing institution dedicated to protecting the Democrat Party. To the surprise of many who used to admire Tapper’s independence, The Lead with Jake Tapper has devolved into just another hour of CNN, another indistinguishable hour of humorless Trump-bashing, uninteresting moral outrage, and predictable talking points.

If you watch the hour before or after The Lead, you have seen The Lead.

This is why MSNBC is pummeling CNN. MSNBC might be every bit as dedicated to the left-wing cause as CNN, but with hosts like Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Ari Melber, Chris Hayes, and Joy Reid, MSNBC is at least interesting, and at times will even surprise you. CNN is as humorless, programmed, and pedantic as a day spent at socialist summer camp.

Tapper has also made enormous strides to undermine his own integrity. On top of his tired moralizing, the last year has seen the anti-Trump activist destroy his once sterling reputation by constantly pushing fake news, remaining silent as his audience booed a rape victim (something he refuses to publicly apologize for), edging into Brian Williams territory with a bizarre act of résumé enhancement, thin-skinned responses after being caught saying something that is objectively untrue, and childish attacks on Trump and his staffers.

Tapper is become just another cog in Jeff Zucker’s sputtering and sinking machine.

Tapper’s Sunday talk show, State of the Union, is also floundering. Last week Sunday Tapper was only able to attract 798,000 viewers, whereas a rerun of Fox News Sunday earned 1.061 million.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.