CNN is coming down hard from its Trump-era sugar high.
The cable network’s ratings are down more than 50% since President Joe Biden’s inauguration, its prime-time lineup hemorrhaging viewers at a breakneck pace.
In the first three weeks of 2021, which saw the U.S. Capitol building come under attack from a violent mob and former President Donald Trump acquitted in his second impeachment trial, CNN averaged roughly 2.2 million viewers.
Since the Jan. 20 inauguration, however, CNN has averaged only 1 million viewers — a drop in viewership of nearly 54%.
As it turns out, the audience that drove the cable network’s ratings boom between 2016 and 2020 is apparently not that interested in hearing about Tucker Carlson, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, the border crisis, or Biden’s 40 executive orders.
“CNN’s struggles are even more prominent among the key advertising demographic of adults age 25-54, with a drop of 60 percent,” Fox News reports. “It averaged 617,000 demo viewers from Dec. 28 through Inauguration Day but only 244,000 since Biden entered the White House.”
CNN anchors Anderson Cooper, Chris Cuomo, and Don Lemon have seen an especially sharp decline in viewership.
Fox notes, “CNN averaged 3.1 million viewers from 8-11 p.m. from Dec. 28 through Inauguration Day but only 1.4 million since for a whopping 55-percent decline. Over the same time period, CNN’s primetime lineup lost 63 percent of its viewers among the crucial demo.”
Weirdly enough, MSNBC’s drop in viewership has been slightly less dramatic, even though that network also went all-in on Trumpmania during the previous administration.
“MSNBC lost 34 percent of its total-day viewers and 30 percent during primetime under Biden,” Fox reports.
This is roughly similar to what happened to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow after the “Russian collusion” narrative imploded. The key difference here is the drop in ratings is networkwide.
Lemon, for his part, is putting on a brave face, claiming it’s more important that Biden is president than CNN enjoy good ratings.
“No. I’m not worried about it,” the anchor said in a recent interview with the New York Times, referring to his network’s decline in viewership. “Trump was a horrible person. And he was terrible for the country. And it is better for all — for the world that he is no longer the president of the United States.”
Lemon adds, “So if that means that cable news ratings go down? Aww. So I’m not really that concerned about it. I would prefer that my ratings go down and Trump not be in office than my ratings be sky-high and him be there. That’s the honest truth.”
Don’t kid yourself. The moment Trump reemerges in a big way on the national stage (and he will), Lemon and his cohort will be all over that story like a fat kid on a Skittle. Because if there is one thing they developed over there at CNN over the past five years, it’s a taste for that sweet, sweet Trump sugar high.
