CNN found itself in unfamiliar territory–No. 1 in the cable news ratings–when news broke Sunday night that Osama bin Laden had been killed by a U.S. raid, reports the Los Angeles Times’ Show Tracker blog.
CNN led the cable news networks with 7.8 million total viewers from 8-9 p.m. PT, when President Obama announced the killing of bin Laden, the story says. Fox News Channel, meanwhile, drew 4.8 million viewers and MSNBC had 2.3 million viewers, the story says.
From 7 p.m. to midnight, CNN averaged 4.1 million viewers, a gain of 981% from its Sunday average for the previous four weeks.
Proof once again that the viewing public sees CNN as the key place for International news. Fox will always lose on these international stories.