Cable News Ratings On First Day Of Japan Quake Show Varying Patterns

The cable news ratings from the first day of the earthquake in Japan on Friday showed that viewers were sending a variety of different signals about their watching habits.

CNN won the overall ratings game--barely. 2.645 million people watched the network's coverage of the crisis in Japan. Fox News was close behind, with 2.273 million viewers. MSNBC lagged far behind, with just 630,000 viewers tuning in during the course of the day.

However, while CNN won the total day viewership, Fox News won the primetime battle--though, again, just barely. The channel drew 2.719 million viewers, as opposed to CNN's 2.645 million. (CNN's ratings surge did lead to some surprising results, such as Piers Morgan edging out Sean Hannity in the total viewer ratings.)

And, to make matters more complicated, CNN won by a large margin in the coveted A25-54 margin: 1.1 million to Fox News' 724,000.

Comments

[SaneThoughts]

03:05 AM on 03/22/2011

Isn't it obscene that media organization get to profit from disasters?

[katysax]

01:56 AM on 03/18/2011

CNN is like two networks. On most normal days its coverage is bland, insipid and laden with false equivalence and phony outrage over trivia. BUT, when there is a big event in the world, when something real, as opposed to fake news is happening, then CNN is far and away the best at it. MSNBC does not have the depth of reporting staff and range of visuals that CNN can offer.

In the midst of a crisis I don't want to hear constant nattering about what people are saying about it on capitol hill that constitutes too much of the coverage on MSNBC.

[1smartcanerican]

07:46 PM on 03/17/2011

Since I am an MSNBC viewer, I find it very frustrating that they only have news on for about 4.5 days a week - and then comes Friday night through Sunday where there is nothing on the channel that works for me. I think this is like bi-polar disease and MSNBC needs to get help to become either a news channel OR a channel more like TLC.

[Andrew Wojtkowski]

12:30 PM on 03/17/2011

WoW, A25-54 went out to CNN over FOX? What a surprise.

If only they stopped calling us young ignorant and lacking experience- maybe some of us (not I) would actually watch their garbage.

[JerryLevy]

12:03 PM on 03/17/2011

Interesting stuff, in times of catastrophe, people seem to migrate to CNN. I wonder why

[Stephen Davies]

08:29 AM on 03/17/2011

Its a fact that when the American people want the Truth they know that CNN is the best of the worse !
I am just waiting for the Fox team to blame the President for this one,
Any bets on how long it will take them ,

[zx880]

03:05 PM on 03/16/2011

I tuned in Fox a couple of times that day, but they were too busy union-bashing to cover the situation in Japan. So I kept going back to CNN where I could find out about the earthquake.

[Danish5666]

02:19 PM on 03/16/2011

Why would these numbers mean anything? Cable TV has a minute following compared to the big 3.

[emlr]

12:31 PM on 03/16/2011

It's so freakin' frustrating trying to watch when they have half the screen plastered with streaming news, station logos and such! I gave up on CNN for that reason and went to the internet.

[ltague]

08:29 PM on 03/15/2011

I watched CNN practically the whole day & into evening. The daytime coverage rarely repeated stories, which most do during an all day coverage of a big story. They had a lot of correspondents & guests to talk to & rarely interrupted them. I switched now & then to MSNBC (NEVER FAUX) but they would reloop too much. CNN really seemed to be on their game for something that happened so unexpectedly.

[rcthomp]

07:16 PM on 03/15/2011

MSNBC still has Engel, who is badass

[rightstroke]

12:08 AM on 03/17/2011

too bad they have to use a nbc reporter...no msnbc analyst has gone to japan...embarassing

[rcthomp]

06:10 PM on 03/17/2011

They should clone Engel and share him with all the networks

[phoebequeen]

05:13 PM on 03/15/2011

I'm not much of a ratings kind of gal, but I had CNN on for the first 24 hours. By far, the best coverage imo.

[ButterBiscuit]

05:06 PM on 03/15/2011

the problem with MSNBC is that they don't usually have good visual footage. They don't have as many boots on the ground getting the exclusive videos and interviews. This is too bad. Also, they don't air news 24/7 like CNN and Faux. As much as I personally do not trust, therefore dislike Faux, I have to give them credit for being on location and getting videos and interviews on the ground while major events are unfolding (whether that information gets twisted and misrepresented by personalities in the studio is a whole other topic). People just don't think of MSNBC as a round the clock cable news channel because they don't have news after hours or on the weekends after noon. They should work on that and I'm sure they would have better ratings.

[craftycrow]

02:56 PM on 03/15/2011

It's always my first impulse to turn to CNN turning serious news issues. CNN always has the straight news. I don't need opinion fused with my news.

[Bob Morrow]

02:50 PM on 03/15/2011

I want to say that I do appreciate the fact that HP did change the headline on this article. Thank you.