After one week without President Trump at the helm of the country, CNN’s primetime ratings dropped sharply, according to data from Nielsen and Variety.
The left-news network flourished amid the 2020 election in November, garnering a 135% growth in total viewership compared to the same time last year. CNN beat out Fox News and MSNBC in the key 25-54 age demographic, according to the data.
Further, CNN also broke out during election week, taking the lead against competitors with an average of 5.9 million viewers.
Weekly ratings are in: @CNN #1 in all of cable & cable news during week of Jan 18 in total viewers and demo 25-54. Grows triple digits from last year, while @FoxNews is off -25% in prime time. Release: https://t.co/o62oEfhjqV pic.twitter.com/zp21aFw4st
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) January 26, 2021
BUT…only one week after President Trump left the White House, these “spectacular” ratings CRASHED!
For the week of Jan. 25-29 – the first full week of Joe Biden’s tenure – CNN saw its primetime ratings drop about 44% for total audience compared to the week prior, according to data analyzed by Variety Intelligence Platform.
During this week, CNN did still lead the competition in the key demographic for the 10 p.m. hour and beat out Fox News in the demographic for 9 p.m., the data shows.
Wow. Here's cable news ratings (demo top, total bottom) from two Fridays, Oct. 22 (left) and Jan. 23 (right).
Fox News' third place finishes are in red, first place finishes in green. pic.twitter.com/Os5jAiLFK0
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) January 26, 2021
However, the numbers for the key demographic declined sharply, with “Cuomo Prime Time” seeing its audience falling by more than half, according to Variety.
Although, Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” was the one program that saw a slight increase in the demographic, according to the data.
Variety Intelligence Platform analyzed viewership data using the key demographic and the total audience numbers, Variety reported.
CNN’s sharp plummet for the last week in January backs some media experts’ belief that a Biden White House could be bad for TV.