Posted on 11/16/2005 7:18:41 AM PST by LdSentinal
His '360' is down 27 percent from 'NewsNight'
CNN booted Aaron Brown two weeks ago, hoping that a more exciting personality would boost ratings for the 10 p.m. timeslot. That more exciting personality was Anderson Cooper, still basking in kudos for his Hurricane Katrina coverage.
But while Cooper may have wowed audiences reporting from New Orleans, he's off to a poor start anchoring CNN’s revamped primetime news show.
For the week ended Nov. 13, its first week, “Anderson Cooper 360,” as the new 10-to-midnight show is called, averaged 593,000 viewers, according to Nielsen.
That’s down 27 percent from October's 813,000 average for “NewsNight,” on which Cooper and Brown shared hosting responsibilities for the past month. It’s also well below the 842,000 Brown’s show averaged during 2004.
Cooper also lost 37 percent of “Larry King Live’s” lead-in audience.
Cooper is even doing poorly compared to himself. In its old 7 p.m. timeslot, “360” drew 672,000 viewers last month, 13 percent better than “360’s” average last week. And last week's numbers came during an election week, when viewership should have spiked with the closely followed races in New York, New Jersey and Virginia.
Just why Cooper is off to such a poor start is unclear. He obviously has a fan base, and more so than Brown, it would seem. And he's certainly a livelier personality.
It could well be that viewers long used to Brown got confused when they tuned in and saw only Cooper after a month of the two serving as co-anchors. Cooper’s energy may be a turnoff to viewers used to Brown’s more sober approach.
If that's the case, the new Cooper show could well rebound as it finds its own audience.
But might it be a case of CNN assuming, and wrongly, that a change in anchors would boost ratings?
For Jeff Alan, author of "Anchoring America: The Changing Face of Network News," the days when changing anchors was a sure-fire cure for sagging ratings are past us.
“There’s a new reality in the way people view the news,” he says, with content driving viewers’ decisions about which programs to watch. “Personality-driven shows are becoming a thing of the past.”
Alan points to a similar trend in broadcast, where evening news anchors have diminished in importance, especially with the passing of the era of marquee network anchors. Says he: “People think that these shows are more personality-driven than they really are.”
"more exciting personality"
?!
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/cooper_watch_day_six_28293.asp
Cooper Watch: Day Six
On Monday, Anderson Cooper 360 averaged 493,000 viewers between 10pm and midnight -- the program's lowest viewership since the Nov. 7 premiere. He averaged 147,000 viewers in the demo (vs. 230,000 on premiere night).
At 10pm, Cooper averaged 638,000 viewers. Greta Van Susteren beat Cooper by more than a million, with 1,712,000. At 11pm, Cooper averaged 348,000; a repeat of The O'Reilly Factor delivered 1,028,000.
Premiere-to-date, the program is averaging 576,000 viewers, down 17 percent from Oct. 2005 levels.
Compared to the same time period in 2004, 360 is down just 4 percent in the 25-54 demographic, while FNC is down 39 percent, the network notes. In the 18-49 demographic, CNN is down 3 percent and FNC is down 41 percent from the same time period last November.
Anderson Cooper just annoys me. Of course so did Aaron Brown. I hardly ever watch CNN anyhow, so whatever!
Isn't this the chap Drudge had quoted saying his grey hair made him feel orgasmic? Dang, those new ratings must have him tantric by now.
I can't beleive that Cooper is only 35 years old. Holy Chit....he looks 65!
Loosing share? Try the truth.
Having trouble filling the Brown hole...
ROFL - that's something an angry gay guy should have no trouble with...if only they hired competent people /sarc
I guess being outed flushed his ratings. So much for diversity.
at the risk of being flamed for even watching CNN, or of being a(n)(admitted) recovering liberal, this is what I wrote to CNN a couple of weeks ago...(don't smoke me up for the NBC line)
"It was with considerable sadness that I absorbed the “news” that Aaron Brown was being replaced by Anderson Cooper. Demographically speaking, I am a baby boomer, retired Army Officer, and business instructor at a Texas community college. As the saying goes, “the numbers don’t lie” and certainly viewer rating percentages played the dominate part in this realignment. But numbers always change, and our interpretation of them is in constant flux. CNN wants to appeal to a younger audience; hence, a more hip approach, provided by the standing, ostensibly tech savvy Mr. Cooper. But this block of viewers won’t stay- their attention span will wane; they’ll switch back to MTV, or return to the internet for their news. As for me, it’s back to NBC."
Huh? Who the hell would that be?????
I channel-surfed a lot during the Katrina coverage. I soon realized that both Anderson Cooper and Shepard Smith act like teenaged girls.
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