With this week marking the one-year anniversary of Jeff Zucker’s appointment as president of CNN Worldwide, the numbers show Zucker still has his work cut out for him.
Variety reports that CNN delivered its lowest ratings since Zucker took over the cable-news network. Ratings released Tuesday show that for the week of Jan. 13-19, the network averaged 78,000 viewers in the key news demo of adults 25-54 in total day, and 99,000 for prime time.
"Meanwhile, Fox News Channel averaged 218,000 in the same demo for total-day, almost matching CNN and MSNBC (which earned 148,000) combined," the story reports. "In prime, Fox pulled in 261,000 and MSNBC attracted 235,000."
Compared with the same week a year earlier, that’s a 33% slide in the demographic in total day. Meanwhile, CNN also fell 28% in total viewers, and the network posted even steeper declines in prime time, according to the report.
"Fox News, on the other hand, was up in total-day by 3% in adults 25-54 and 6% in total viewers, while MSNBC was down 5% and 11% in these categories respectively," the report adds.
Zucker belongs over a show, not a network…and then he should have three ratings books to prove his stuff, or go.
I fault CNN execs. They should have reduced his position months after their mistaken decisions to put him on the CNN Throne.
Peter Bright