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CNN shoots ahead
with Jackson death

Averages 3.89 million total viewers on Thursday night

By Toni Fitzgerald
Jun 29, 2009

CNN’s viewership has flagged in recent months without the presidential election to draw in viewers.

But Thursday the network proved that it’s still the channel viewers turn to for breaking news.

CNN led across virtually all measures that night as the cable news networks covered the unexpected death of Michael Jackson, well ahead of Fox News Channel and MSNBC.

During primetime on Thursday, barely an hour after news of the death had broken, the Turner network averaged 3.89 million total viewers, 1.02 million more than FNC. MSNBC was third with 1.47 million total viewers.

All were well above their May averages in primetime, according to Nielsen. CNN drew nearly five times its average audience of 768,000 last month, while Fox News was up almost 1 million and MSNBC doubled its usual 762,000.

CNN also finished first among adults 25-54 Thursday night with 1.79 million tuning in, to FNC’s 1.2 million and MSNBC’s 684,000.

From 6 p.m., just before news of Jackson’s death was confirmed, to 2 a.m., when the networks were still speculating over cause of death, CNN averaged 3.16 million viewers, FNC 2.34 million and MSNBC 1.14 million.

All three networks also devoted chunks of coverage to the death of Farrah Fawcett, who passed away the same day after a long battle with cancer.

CNN’s strong ratings come after the network lost the edge it honed during last year’s presidential election.

The cable network often matched or even outperformed the broadcasters on coverage of major election events, such as the Democratic National Convention and presidential debates.

But in the months since President Barack Obama took office, CNN’s ratings have slumped. It’s now well behind FNC, which has seen its ratings soar, and just barely holding off MSNBC. The latter was a mere 6,000 behind CNN in May in primetime viewership, growing 10 percent while CNN slumped 22 percent.

But the frenzy over Jackson’s death shows that CNN remains the network that viewers turn to for breaking news, confirming a pattern that’s been seen over the past two decades, dating back to the start of the Persian Gulf War back in 1991.

Toni Fitzgerald is a staff writer for Media Life.	© 2010 Media Life Magazine

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