Chris Wallace Hangs Head In Shame As CNN Ratings Plummet, Hit Lowest Level Since July 2015
CNN’s ratings are in freefall with no end in sight. Viewership plunged 13% in June from the month prior making June 2022 CNN’s lowest-rated month in total day viewership since July 2015. Ouch.
This comes after Chris Licht, CNN’s new boss, made massive changes at the network with the promise of more to come. What makes the news even worse for CNN is that the ratings debacle comes when CNN brought out all the stars like Chris Wallace for the Jan 6 committee hearings. Those hearings are driving huge ratings for everyone except CNN.
“This premise is unfair and inaccurate. The only ‘sweeping change’ to programming in the past 60 days was a directive to be more selective about use of the breaking news banner. It would be absurd for anyone to expect that move alone to have an impact on ratings,” a CNN spokesperson said.
According to Yahoo:
“For the month of June, and despite the Jan. 6 House committee holding several blockbuster hearings that should have been squarely in the channel’s wheelhouse, CNN actually lost viewership from the previous month.
“Worse yet, the network had already seen drops over the previous two months.
“CNN’s primetime lineup only attracted 654,000 total viewers and 148,000 in the key advertising demographic of viewers aged 25-54—a 1-percent decline in both categories from May.
“And in total day viewership, CNN’s overall audience dropped to 487,000 while it attracted 104,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo, shedding 3 percent and 2 percent, respectively.
“And during the week of June 13 to 19, which featured quite a bit of focus on the committee hearings, the network only averaged 480,000 viewers overall, a 13-percent drop from its May averages and the channel’s worst week since November 2015.
“June 2022 was CNN’s lowest-rated month in total day viewership since July 2015.”
From The Daily Mail:
CNN finished 12th among basic cable networks in both May and June. While ESPN and TNT were dominant due to their coverage of the NBA and NHL Playoffs, that still puts them behind several of their non-sports competitors.
It’s a far cry from the last days of the Trump administration, which saw the network finished tops on cable in 2020 and dispatched rival Fox News to third place.
For the final year of Trump’s presidency, CNN brought in an average of 1.79 million total viewers in primetime but the network had lost over half of that viewership by the end of 2021.
It continues a dreadful year for the network in the wake of its expensive flop CNN+ streaming service.
Chris Licht has already instituted sweeping changes at CNN in an effort to make it less politically divisive and more neutral in tone but the ratings have only continued to drop since his era began https://t.co/dimRF1ZgA1
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) July 1, 2022
CNN ratings tank in first weeks under new boss Chris Licht https://t.co/Jlqr0Rz25R pic.twitter.com/HABjjfKdo1
— New York Post (@nypost) July 1, 2022