CNN’s controversial town hall with former President Donald Trump spurred a backlash from staffers and left-wing pundits — but it paid off in the ratings.
The perennially last-place cable network reeled in 3.1 million viewers for Wednesday’s 70-minute broadcast that began at 8 p.m., CNN said Thursday.
The ratings easily eclipsed the paltry figures drawn by its regular 8 p.m. news hour hosted by Anderson Cooper, who averages less than 1 million viewers.
CNN said the town hall marked its best rating since the final Jan. 6 hearings, which aired on July 21 of last year.
At the time, CNN logged 3.2 million total viewers, according to Nielsen.
The Kaitlan Collins-moderated town hall from St. Anselm College in New Hampshire also nabbed 703,000 viewers in the vital 25-54 demographic.
It was one of CNN’s highest-rated programs in years, falling short of the town hall with President Biden on Feb. 16, 2021 — which delivered 3.7 million viewers and 912,000 in the demo.
CNN handily beat out rival networks in the time slot, with Fox News logging 1.4 million total viewers and 125,000 viewers in the coveted demo. MSNBC amassed 1.4 million viewers and 155,000 viewers in the demo.
The 70-minute town hall was a much-needed ratings bump for CNN, which has been in last place among cable news networks under CEO Chris Licht.
Primetime ratings for CNN fell 61% in March — the steepest dip in viewership among the big three cable news networks, according to the figures released by Nielsen.
The steep drop in ratings has been a bad omen for CNN, which has struggled to right the ship since parent company Warner Bros. Discovery hired Licht for the job of turning the news channel around more than a year ago.
In March, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav gave a pep talk to network bosses, urging them to avoid politically oriented commentary and partisanship.
“Ratings be damned,” he said. “Let’s focus on who we are. This is our mission. This is our legacy. And this is our journey together.”
CNN’s move away from left-leaning commentary has spurred controversy within the company. Some critics saw the move of giving Trump a forum as a ratings play — and contradictory to what Zaslav and Licht set out to do.
Last week, when asked why Trump was making an appearance on CNN, Zaslav told CNBC: “He’s the front-runner, he has to be on our network.”
He added: “We are a divided government. We need to hear both voices. That’s what you see. Republicans are on the air on CNN, Democrats are on the air. All voices should be heard,”
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
