CNN’s wall-to-wall coverage of a grand jury's decision in the shooting death of unarmed teen Michael Brown — and subsequent turmoil after the panel declined to indict Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson — gave the struggling cable network huge ratings gains in both a key demographic and and total viewers.
Though perennial leader Fox News maintained its dominance in total viewership, in overall primetime, CNN was ahead in the the 25-54 demographic by nearly a million viewers, averaging 2.627 million compared with Fox News' 1.653 million,
Mediaite reports.
The surge peaked not at 9 p.m., when the grand jury's decision was announced, but during the second half of the 10 p.m. hour, when CNN had 3.558 million viewers in the 25-54 demographic, Mediaite reports.
In total viewers, Fox News averaged 5.563 million in prime time compared with 5.079 million viewers on CNN. With 7.256 million viewers during the 9 p.m. hour, Fox’s "The Kelly File" was the overall winner for the night, Mediaite reports.
MSNBC also had a spike in viewers at 9 p.m., topping 2 million total, but still far behind both Fox and CNN.
CNN's coverage got mixed reviews from one critic.
"[T]heir cameras captured the first clashes between sometimes-violent protesters and a police force that appeared quick to use tear gas to crack down on many peaceful demonstrators,"
Slate notes.
"The images were powerful and important. Unfortunately, though, they were not all that informative, because the live shots were accompanied with on-air reporting from the ground that was occasionally contradictory, often confusing, and, whenever possible, self-referential."
CNN has struggled mightily in the ratings. The Nov. 10 9 p.m. time slot drew 181,000 total viewers, the lowest for the time period since at least Oct. 1, 1991, as far back as Nielsen electronic records go,
Mediabistro reports.