Obama Interview Fails to Boost CNN’s ‘New Day’ Ratings

The president capped a week filled with exclusive interviews on "New Day"

An interview with President Obama on Friday failed to lift the ratings of CNN's new morning news program, according to preliminary numbers.

Friday's "New Day," which featured the interview with the nation's chief executive, received no ratings bump — and in fact posted numbers below the show's average since it launched in June.

Ratings: CNN's 'New Day' Hits New Lows With Prince William Exclusive

The episode featuring the Obama interview averaged 280,000 total viewers, with 91,000 of them in the key 25-54 news demographic. That's compared to the show's averages to date of 332,000 total viewers and 122,000 viewers 25-54.

That put "New Day" in third place in total viewers, behind Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends," which drew 1.107 million total viewers, and MSNBC's "Morning Joe," which averaged 312,000 total viewers.

Also read: Can Jeff Zucker Rebuild CNN From 6 A.M. Up?

In the demo, "New Day" was also third, behind "Fox & Friends" (which had 202,000 viewers in the demo) and CNN's sister station HLN, which drew 103,000 viewers 25-54.

Friday's Obama interview capped a rough week for "New Day," during which a series of exclusive interviews did little to move the needle for the struggling new entry into cable morning news shows. Monday's interview with Prince William — his first since the birth of his son, Prince George — saw "New Day" drop to new lows in both the key demo and total viewers, drawing 60,000 viewers and 216,000 in each respective categories.

An interview with Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday also failed to generate a ratings rally for the show, though it performed better than the Obama and Prince William interviews, with the episode averaging 102,000 viewers in the demo and 284,000 total viewers.

The good news for "New Day" is that it's up from CNN's year-ago numbers in the news demo, averaging 110,000 viewers in the demo since its launch — a 29 percent increase from the network's year-ago numbers. MSNBC and Fox are both down in the demo from year-ago numbers.

Correction: An earlier version of this story noted that, since its launch, "New Day" has slipped 16 percent in total viewers and 25 percent in the 25-54 demo.In actuality, those declines are for the Friday average of the show.

Comments