CNN ratings keep sinking

From a New York Times report at the link below:

CNN continued what has become a precipitous decline in ratings for its prime-time programs in the first quarter of 2010, with its main hosts losing almost half their viewers in a year.

The trend in news ratings for the first three months of this year is all up for one network, the Fox News Channel, which enjoyed its best quarter ever in ratings, and down for both MSNBC and CNN.

CNN has long regarded Anderson Cooper as the strongest host at CNN. Yet the New York Times report says his show has suffered badly.

For the quarter, Cooper dropped 42 percent in viewers and 46 percent among the 25-to-54-year-old audience that the news channels use for their sales to advertisers.

We have long said that Anderson Cooper is newscastings answer to cold oatmeal. According to his drop in ratings, a host of others must feel the same way.

The Times report says that CNN’s programs are led by hosts “not aligned with any partisan point of view,” which is not true.

During most of the 1990’s, CNN was known by many as the Clinton News Network for the way they under reported anything negative about Bill Clinton - especially the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the subsequent impeachment proceedings.

The New York Times report is here. Recent cable news viewership numbers can be found here.