CNN’s “New Day,” a weekday morning program that relaunched in February for the sixth time in its eight years by bringing on Brianna Keilar and moving Alisyn Camerota to “Newsroom,” still faces abysmal ratings.
Jeff Zucker was the force behind “New Day” when he was selected in 2013 to take over for Jim Walton as president of CNN. Zucker’s role as a producer for NBC’s “The Today Show” was viewed as the juice behind the comeback CNN was looking to make against other thriving left-wing programs, such as MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Eight years later, it is clear the show is not a fan favorite. Last week, “New Day” recorded its lowest-rated week all year in total viewers. The program last week also tied for the lowest-rated week of the entire year in the critical 25-to-54-year-old demographic.
Shifting Camerota to an afternoon slot has not had the effect CNN would have preferred. The anchor spent six years on “New Day,” and the relaunch further highlights the instability of the morning show. Prior to Keilar coming on, John Berman replaced Chris Cuomo as a co-host, Michael Pereira was swapped, and Kate Bolduan left for “At This Hour.”
Nielson ratings show the CNN program is only averaging about half a million viewers since Keilar took over for Camerota. In comparison to the first quarter of 2021, when the show operated with Berman and Camerota, “New Day” has slumped 37 percent in total viewers and is down 40 percent in the demo. And in comparison to the same time last year, “New Day” is down 25 percent.
CNN’s struggles do not end at “New Day.” The outlet launched a weekend special called “The Story of Late Night” last week that tanked. The heavily promoted series averaged just shy of 800,000 viewers and 186,000 in the demo. The CNN time slot is down 35 percent across the board and 25 percent in comparison to the annual average.
From March to April 2021, CNN dropped 15 percent of its viewers and ratings fell 5 percent in the prime-time demo. But year-over-year, things are far worse. The outlet’s ratings fell 47 percent in prime-time viewers and 42 percent in total day viewers, per the recent data sets.
“CNN — and the corporate news media in general — have been buying leftist political victories at the price of journalistic integrity for decades,” The Daily Wire’s Andrew Klavan said. He frequently discusses the state of legacy media in his podcast “The Andrew Klavan Show.”
“They treated Obama like a genius saint instead of the mediocrity he was. They treated Trump as a demon instead of what he was: a reaction to Obama and the elite’s moral and political failures,” Klavan added. “Trump’s loud and scary personality gave some credence to their ceaselessly negative, dishonest, and unfair coverage of him. But now, he’s gone, and like Little Suzy in the old rock song, their reputation is shot. They lie and lie and lie and demonize Fox News and then lie some more. Why should anyone watch them?”