Top 21 Cable News Shows, Ranked: What are the Most Popular
CNN, MSNBC, Fox News Programs? (Photos)
Find
out who is the most watched among Rachel Maddow, Anderson Cooper and Megyn
Kelly
Brian
Flood, provided by
Published 9:50 am, Sunday, October 2, 2016
Fox News, CNN and
MSNBC had a lot of news to cover during the busy third quarter of 2016. Morning
shows, standard newscasts and political opinion shows make up the Top 21
programs in the world of cable news. Which show was the most popular among the
key demo of adults age 25-54 during Q3?
21. MSNBC’s “Hardball
with Chris Matthews” averaged 244,000 viewers among the key news demo.
20. “Happening Now”
on Fox News averaged 260,000 demo viewers during the third quarter.
19. “Your World with
Neil Cavuto” maintained momentum despite its namesake missing the summer
following heart surgery.
18. CNN’s “Situation
Room with Wolf Blitzer” averaged 275,00 viewers among the key demo.
16. “Fox &
Friends” averaged 278,000 to dominate cable morning news programs among the
demo. MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and CNN’s “New Day” finished below 200,000 viewers.
15. “Shepard
Smith Reporting” tied Fox News’ “Outnumbered” by averaging
284,000 viewers between age 25-54.
14. Fox News’
“Outnumbered” is extremely popular considering its noon ET time slot, averaging
284,000 viewers.
13.“America’s
Newsroom” with Martha MacCallum and Bill Hemmer fell short of the
300,000-plateau with 294,000 demo viewers.
12. MSNBC’s “Last
Word with Lawrence O’Donnell”averaged 301,000 viewers to finish as the
second-most popular show on MSNBC.
11. “Erin Burnett
OutFront” averaged 326,000 viewers among the key demo to finish as CNN’s
third-most watched show.
10. “CNN Tonight with
Don Lemon” cracks the Top 10 with 339,000 viewers among the key demo.
9. The late-night
replay of “The O’Reilly Factor” racked up 341,000 average viewers, topping most
live shows on cable.
8. MSNBC’s
most-watched program is “The Rachel Maddow Show” with 361,000 demo viewers.
7. “On the
Record with Brit Hume” has thrived since Greta Van Susteren surprised the
media world by leaving Fox News in early September, averaging 371,000 viewers
in the third quarter that reflects both hosts.
6. Fox News’ “The
Five” is regularly among the most-watched shows on cable and also averaged
371,000 demo viewers.
5. CNN’s
most-watched show is Anderson Cooper’s “AC 360,” which averaged 384,000 demo
viewers.
4. “Special Report
with Bret Baier” is so popular that Fox News recently added a Sunday version.
3. “The O’Reilly
Factor” withBill
O’Reillydominated
total viewers, but finished behind two colleagues in the key demo.
2. Fox News’
“Hannity” withSean
Hannityaveraged
564,000 viewers in the key demo as the Donald Trump supporter continues to make
news on a regular basis.
1.Megyn Kelly has
plenty to smile about, finishing the third quarter as the most-watched show on
cable news among the key demo, averaging 569,000 viewers between age 25-54.
The only thing more fun than watching politicians sell out their principles in an effort to align themselves with the latest polls is watching the news networks sell out to the ratings game. With just three weeks left in the midterm campaign come Tuesday last minute adjustments are being made by the media but will they do any good at this late stage?
Take CNN for instance, the last cable network close to being fair and balanced until they moved left winger Rick Sanchez into an anchor role, then into prime time, and now have fired him. Did CNN move too far to the left? Of course, and when CNN wanted to introduce a new liberal program with co-hosts former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer with co-host Kathleen Parker, a show called Parker Spitzer (how creative) Sanchez had to go.
So far the television critics don't like the show nor the fast pace that means we get sound bites, not in depth discussion of issues. That is all we need on cable, more sound bites and less news. But then why CNN chose to revive the career of the discredited Spitzer who was force out as governor of New York because of a prostitute scandal, when there are surely others not involved in sex scandals in politics is hard to understand.
CNN seems to have temporarily lost their mind when it comes to programming. In their exclusive coverage of saving the miners trapped in Chile for 66 days they didn't even realize it was an American drilling team that was responsible for providing the drill and team that reached the miners two and a half months ahead of schedule. It wasn't until late in the coverage they finally realized it, even though the Americans were beside the President of Chile when he made the dramatic announcement.
Just today, Sunday, CNN host T J Holmes was doing story on a university study showing divorce rates for different women's occupations. Believe it or not two male reporters did the story, no females, and CNN has plenty of capable females. CNN's Robin Meade or Soledad O'Brien could have done a much better job.
Of course the whole story was stupid as the highest divorce rate was among dancers and choreographs, at around 33%. There was no explanation of what kind of dancers. Do ballet and pole dancers have the same divorce rate? And since 50% of all marriages wind up in divorce, it made no sense what so ever.
CNN is still stringing out the long overdue retirement of Larry King and the segments get weirder by the day.
Anderson Cooper is one of our favorite CNN reporters and he is now appearing on CBS 60 Minutes and other networks. Will he be the next to leave? They really don't need to lose any more good reporters.
Then there is Elizabeth Hasselbeck, the sole conservative on the liberal frenzy called The View (ABC) with Barbara Wawa, Whoppie Goldberg et all. She has won a new and coveted spot on Good Morning America, the ABC morning show, where she will finally get to finish a sentence without liberal interruption.
Finally, MSNBC has added yet another left wing show with host Lawrence O'Donnell who has been a political analyst for MSNBC for over 10 years. As he said, "I've had a part-time job at MSNBC for 14 years. Now that the network and I have gotten to know each other, I'm thrilled to be going full time." f course the quality of his new show can be seen by the fact his second show featured the resident idiot from Alaska, Levi Johnston, the high school dropout who got Bristol Palin pregnant. Seems O'Donnell could never get Sarah Palin on the show so he chose to go for the vulgar dimwit to try and hype his ratings. Now that was some intellectual presentation.
Let it not be said that those who report the news are not the news as that is one of the journalistic standards in this day and age of egocentric journalism. My stories often call attention to the violators of journalistic integrity disguised as our nation's news media, and the elitist media of major newspapers and television.
More often than not the elite reporters have agendas that checkmate their desire for objectivity, non-biased reporting or telling the story of the subject of the article. Such a mindset leads directly to the reporter judging rather than reporting on the person being discussed.
Another distraction from the truth for reporters of today is the intense pressure on them from bosses or peers to write books, once again essays in judgment and violations on the confidentiality of news sources for the purpose of creating celebrity status for the reporters. In the eyes of the newspaper or TV network such celebrity status translates to recognition, ratings and money.
Of course it is little different than the pressure put on university professors, especially scientists, who are viewed by the school administration as a revenue source more than a teaching instrument for kids. Often the grants brought in by these professors pay for the cost of the department or unit. It is an atmosphere for corruption as altered test results may make the difference between winning or losing millions of dollars.
In journalism, however, it never used to be that way until the reporter or TV anchor retired. No one ever wrote books while they were supposed to be reporting the news. When I was a reporter it was impossible to tell whether the seasoned old pros were Democrat or Republican, normally they were Independent, or how they felt on any topic. They reported the news, did not editorialize or inject bias into the stories.
Oh but for the good old days. Today most reporters are not like that. Once the press was highly respected and their writing was the protection of the people from corruption. The Fourth Estate, as I like to attribute to Edmund Burke in 1792 was the English reference to the press who covered the actions of the English government. In America the press was considered important enough to protect with the Bill of Rights and the shield of the Constitution.
Today the definition of press includes almost every kind of trash known to men along with a few good papers and TV programs. Thus reporters who seem to uphold the principles of our founding fathers are few and far between. Most are entertainers like the O'Rielly, Beck or Hannity of Fox News or Olbermann, Matthews, Schultz and Maddows of MSNBC.
While Fox dominates the ratings as conservatives must dominate in America where limited federal government and states rights have long been held sacred, none of those mentioned from the right and the left would ever be accused of objective reporting. As TV network news self-destructed over the past 30 years the audience has moved from the big boys to the cable news where the news of the world must be in sound bites and 2 minute stories. It also ceased being news and became entertainment.
Once in while I come across journalistic performances so foreign to our normal trash talk and sound bites that I must draw attention to these reporters as they may be the last of the endangered species and you should enjoy them while they exist.
Two major recent stories have resulted in new candidates for the Coltons Point Times "Who can you trust" news reporters Hall of Fame. The tragic earthquake in Haiti was the first in which the real news people stepped forward to tell the real story of what was going on in the rescue and recovery effort. I must say I was surprised and pleased to discover gems of reporting amongst the many people covering this disaster.
First and standing alone in superior reporting was Anderson Cooper of CNN, a network that at least tries to report the news and to remain somewhat unbiased. As a result few people watch the network except when in depth news is sought like in the case of Haiti. Cooper should earn a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage from being one of the first on the scene to his fearless travels to every nook and corner of the disaster.
His stories pointing out the flaws of the rescue and recovery efforts when the government officials were telling a different story probably saved many lives. He discovered medical facilities with no medicine first, mass burials with no identification of bodies, the failure to distribute food, water and medicine when it was sitting at the airport for days, and on and on.
When Cooper reports you get empathy, compassion, emotion and truth in doses not often seen in reporters and you just know he will not stop digging for information until he finds the truth. His stories told the horrors of the thousands of deaths, the potential for thousands more from untreated injuries, and the sad failure to search for the 100,000 or more trapped under the debris. Cooper and his 360 program on CNN are a must if you seek truth.
Most surprising to me was the addition of Doctor Sanjay Gupta also of CNN. May times before I had seen him but the seriousness of the stories were never much so I did not notice him. But in Haiti, he performed as no other using his skills as a medical reporter combined with his skills as a neurosurgeon to tell the story and save a life by treating victims he found.
One night when a Belgium hospital team abandoned patients on the operating table for fear of their own safety Sanjay stayed at the tent and spent all night treating the abandoned patients. His reporting deadlines were sacrificed while saving lives.
When Cooper and Sanjay did joint reports which they did often they were always humble while upset over the treatment of the victims. Very subtly they asked critical questions about the promises for help and the failure to deliver and many times their reports resulted in help arriving.
The third reporter deserving recognition for her Haiti performance was Ann Curry of the NBC Today program who was sent to the disaster and literally scoured the city from one end to the other with no regard for the danger to herself in order to make certain the true stories of the tragedy were broadcast on the Today show every morning. I must say Curry was also a pleasant surprise since I was so accustomed to the entertainment aspects of the morning news shows but now I know she has a great news presence.
In regards to the Massachusetts Senate race the coverage was generally lousy as the bias of reporters dominated their reports. Thus the right was overly rejoicing and the left was overly depressed. It does not occur to either of them that the Independents embrace neither the right or the left but the middle.
However, I have been watching the evolution of Savannah Guthrie of NBC and she came into her own recently when they made her co-host of a morning show on MSNBC, The Daily Rundown this year. Ever since she left a lucrative law practice to be a journalist she has been on a fast track spending about a year with Court TV, jumping to NBC, and soon becoming a White House correspondent with Chuck Todd.
I knew there was something about Savannah that made her special and it took a while to discover she was a Tucson, Arizona native who graduated with honors from the University of Arizona, my school, and Georgetown Law School. She was always first in everything. Unlike most network correspondents she seems to have no axe to grind and no political philosophy to advocate but actually reports the news as fair and unbiased as you will find.
The Los Angeles Times named her one of the top female entertainment personalities in the nation to watch in 2010 this past December, she ranked #3, and was the highest ranked from the news media. As long as MSNBC does not corrupt her and she seems far too strong for that to happen she is a delight to watch and a fountain of truth and information. Her new show is a must see.
So Ann Curry and Savannah Guthrie of NBC are the two newest additions to my very limited Hall of Fame along with Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN. You should give them a try as they are rocketing to fame based on talent and truth.
