At some point, Anderson Cooper 360 really will refer to his number of remaining viewers:
The respected CNN anchor has seen his numbers slip significantly through the past year. His 10 p.m. show, “Anderson Cooper 360,” has declined 62% in total viewers and 70% in adults 25-54 from November 2008, according to Nielsen figures.
AdvertisementLast month, in Cooper’s time slot, Fox News’ “On the Record” attracted an average viewership of 1.9 million while “360″ averaged 672,000; repeats of MSNBC’s “Countdown” and HLN’s Nancy Grace show averaged 655,000 and 458,000, respectively.
But in the ad-friendly 25-54 demo, those same repeats won out over Cooper with 224,000 (MSNBC) and 214,000 (HLN).
Cooper — who became an overnight sensation during his Hurricane Katrina coverage — surely deserves better ratings. From the start of 2009, he began losing a huge chunk of his nightly audience.
So what happened? Let’s see: There’s no presidential election to ramp up ratings; there’s heavy competition from centrist CNN’s noisier rivals (see: Fox News, the No. 1 cable news channel); there’s people catching up on DVR-ed TV shows in the late evening; then there’s the loss of Lou Dobbs in the 7 p.m. anchor chair, among other possible factors.
Not to mention Cooper’s public disdain for half his potential audience. It’s a trait he shares with just about all of CNN’s on-air talent, particularly now that the aforementioned Dobbs has bailed.
Anderson Cooper was born twenty to thirty years too late. He has the looks, the right family connections, and adheres to the correct lefty doctrines. But that’s simply not enough in 2009. The era of the mere newsreader is over. One can no longer pretend to be “objective” and above the fray. Audiences expect a TV news personality to have opinions—they can defend in a public forum. Cooper is an idiot. His pretty face will only take him so far. Try to imagine what would have happened to Dan Rather’s career had it begun in today’s market?
CNN is doomed anyway…
there’s heavy competition from centrist CNN’s noisier rivals
Come again? “Centrist”? Maybe on a relative spectrum between Fox and MSNBC, but either CNN and Business Insider, or both, can’t identify target audiences, much less characterize them correctly.
–furious