CNN’s ‘The Point’ & MSNBC’s ‘All In’ Down Sharply From Debuts
Looks like Jeff Zucker’s ill-fated experiment with (Get To) The Point really will just last a week on CNN, if viewership numbers have anything to do with it. Along with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes-hosted All In, the supposedly short-term panel show premiered Monday and both saw their numbers head south ever since. Replacing the 10 PM repeat of Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN, the quickly announced The Point started low and fell further. Over a four-day average this week, the new show was down nearly 50% from the viewership the AC360 repeat drew last year and down 40% from what the encore of Cooper’s show garnered during March. In the adults 25-54 demo, The Point was blunted; with 77,000 in the demo, the Donny Deutsch-led show was down a whopping 55% from what the AC360 repeat received from April 2-April 5, 2012, and down 46% from the 143,000 average Cooper’s repeat earned last month. The worst airing of the week was Tuesday, when The Point bottomed out to a year-low for CNN in the slot with 235,000 watching and 59,000 in the demo.
Related: Jon Stewart Slams Jeff Zucker & CNN’s “Spiral Downward”: Video
Last night, The Point had a total audience of 249,000, with 61,000 viewers 25-54. That’s less than half the 625,000 total viewers and 179,000 in the demo MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell earned the same night. Both shows were well behind the 1.58 million total viewers and 277,000 in the demo that Fox News Channel’s On The Record With Greta Van Susteren drew Thursday.
At least The Point can say it didn’t have much promotion or fanfare to attract a crowd, which is not something MSNBC’s new 8 PM show can say. The Hayes-hosted hour has been being pushed by the network since it was announced on March 14 that the former weekend host would be taking over The Ed Show spot. Against a guest-hosted The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News, All In had a good start Monday, just 12,000 behind O’Reilly in the demo. By Thursday it was a different story, down 26% in the demo (222,000 viewers) and 24% in total viewers (655,000) from its premiere. That’s ahead of the 497,000 (134,000 in the demo) who watched the 8 PM live Anderson Cooper 360 but behind the 1.019 million (306,000 in the demo) who tuned into Nancy Grace on HLN. It also is way way behind the 3.006 million total viewers and 498,000 in the demo who watched O’Reilly that night. With a four-day average of 684,000 viewers and 199,000 in the demo, All In was down 24% from what the Ed Show had in total viewers for April 2-April 5, 2012, and it was down 13% in adults 25-54.
Compared to the month of March, which saw a fill-in show for Ed Schultz the last week, the Hayes-hosted show was down 15% in total viewership and a mere 7% in the demo. Thursday was at least an improvement over Wednesday, when All In hit its lowest total viewers numbers so far — 585,000. It wasn’t the worst day demo-wise for the show: On Tuesday, All In drew 137,000 viewers 24-54.
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