CNN launches a new show. “Democracy in Peril,”Two weeks ago at 9 p.m. ET slot, previously held by Chris Cuomo. Ratings for Brianna Kessel and Jim Acosta are in and the program has not seen a decrease in viewers.
Keilar was in charge of the show’s beginnings last week. From Monday of last week to Monday of this week, CNN’s 9 p.m. hour averaged 556,000 total viewers, of whom just 139,000 were in the advertiser-coveted age demographic of 25 to 54. Compare that to Fox News’ Sean Hannity, whose competing program averaged 2.985 million total viewers Monday to Monday, with 426,000 in the demo, on average. CNN’s average total viewership number was closer to what Fox News pulled in the demo alone than it was to competing with Hannity’s total viewership. Rachel Maddow’s 9 p.m. show on MSNBC pulled in an average of 2.118 million total viewers, with 259,000 of them in the demo.
Notably, that average is skewed by last Thursday’s ratings. On the one-year anniversary of President Joe Biden’s inauguration, the 9 p.m. hour was hosted by Anderson Cooper, which led to a total average viewership of 607,000 with 170,000 in the demo.
This week, Acosta was in charge. Ratings for Monday are available. He received 511,000 viewers total with 103,000 in demo. That is higher than Keilar’s debut on the 17th, which brought in 437,000 total average viewers, of whom 104,000 were in the demo, but lower than Tuesday, when Keilar commanded 629,000 total average viewers with 181,000 of them in the demo. Acosta’s demo totals on Monday were lower than any of Keilars’ or Cooper’s demo totals for the previous week.
For comparison, Fox News’ Hannity grabbed 2.967 million total viewers on Monday, of whom 430,000 were in the demo. MSNBC’s Maddow averaged 2.38 million total viewers with 324,000 in the demo on Monday.
The quest to fill Cuomo’s shoes has been ongoing since his sudden firing at the end of November. Michael Smerconish was the hour’s host for a while and attracted 184,000 demo viewers. Cooper also assisted. Still, Cuomo himself didn’t have stellar ratings: “Cuomo Prime Time”November 2021 was its lowest-rated month in terms of total viewers. “Prime Time”In November, the program averaged 774,000 viewers. 170,000 of those were in the highly-coveted 25-54 age group. (The program, which was test-run prior to its official launch, averaged 1.137million viewers total and 377,000 demo viewers.
Cuomoo was fired in the wake of an investigation into whether he had advised his brother Andrew Cuomoo, the former Governor of New York, during the assault on sexual harassment claims against the politician. (The former governor has denied this). CNN suspended Chris Cuomo one week before his firing. The network was conducting an investigation.