DELUSIONAL NEW YORK TIMES

The New York Times on the Cable News Ratings out at 4pm on Monday.

CNN was dead last in prime time.
Behind FOX and MSNBC and even HNN.
Three of its four shows between 7 and 11 p.m. finished fourth and last among the cable news networks.

For the month, CNN averaged 202,000 viewers between the ages of 25 and 54.
Larry King in the 7-10pm slot, was third with 224,000.
Second was Rachel Maddow on MSNBC with 242,000.
First was Hannity with 659,000 viewers in that age group.

At 8 pm, Bill O’Reilly averaged 881,000 viewers.
Keith Olbermann was second with 295,000.
Nancy Grace was third with 269,000.
Campbell Brown on CNN trailed "with only 162,000."

The NY Times concludes, "The results demonstrate once more the apparent preference of viewers for opinion-oriented shows from the news networks in prime time." (As if Larry King, Olberman, Maddow, Grace and Brown aren't "opinion-oriented shows.")

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OTHER INTERPRETATIONS
David Sessions of Politics Daily gave CNN's response. "CNN said that it still attracts the most viewers when all hours of the day are considered, and that it is no surprise that viewers turn to more partisan programming during prime-time."

Putting it in perspective, Steve Krakauer of MediaIte writes, "Every CNN program is down more than 50% year-to-year in total viewers and the demo, but Anderson Cooper’s 10pmE T hour is down 72% and 79%." Nice graphic of the decline. (Not by the NY Times.)

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NO NEWS STORY carried the figures from the Glenn Beck show, but he was #2 right after Bill O'Reilly. I guess it's bad to be beaten by one show and possibly two, but three?

Maybe that's because CNN, MSNBC and HNN aren't reporting news that people are following. Like ACORN, Charlie Rangel's tax problems, Van Jones, the Green Czar and Obama's failings. Pretending they aren't hard news stories, but opinion pieces makes those networks look incompetent at the least. And they call themselves news outlets?