(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) The numbers keep getting worse for beleaguered CNN host Don Lemon, recently demoted from a primetime evening slot to the network’s morning wasteland, where his latest show has hit near rock bottom.
Lemon’s woes mirror that of the network as a whole, which has seen viewership and revenue plunge across the board, triggering layoffs and the shuffling or jettisoning of shows on all fronts.
Given Lemon’s latest ratings slump, industry insiders have said it wouldn’t surprise if he was next to hit the chopping block. Lemon’s show CNN This Morning, which he co-hosts with Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins, recently had the lowest-rated week since its launch, reported The Wrap.
The show averaged only 331,000 viewers, while Fox & Friends had nearly 1 million and Morning Joe drew 760,000
Unfortunately for CNN, Lemon’s abysmal ratings weren’t a lone outlier. For the first time since 2014, CNN failed to attract at least 450,000 primetime viewers.
According to the latest numbers: For the week of Jan. 16 through Jan. 22, the network averaged 444,000 viewers in primetime, 93,000 in the critically important 25-54 age demographic and 417,000 viewers for total day viewers with 80,000 in the demo.
By comparison, Fox News logged 1.4 million viewers and 176,000 in the demo and MSNBC had 943,000 viewers and 91,000 in the demo, according to The Wrap. The trend of disappointment continued for CNN in primetime, where compared to the networks nearly decade-long low viewership, Fox News logged 2 million viewers, 256,000 in the demo, and MSNBC had 943,000 viewers and 91,000 in the demo.
Lemon and Harlow are reportedly both equally frustrated with the show’s appallingly low viewership, but like CNN boss Chris Licht don’t have any solutions.
“The show can’t decide strategically what exactly it is, so it’s trying to be everything which can create whiplash for a viewer when segments seem off-brand in tonality,” one insider told The Wrap. “The audience for morning news on network TV is different than the cable news audience and since we’re not gaining new viewers we definitely need to retain our legacy ones”’
