'CNN's lowest moment' was also a 'ratings disappointment'

[speak easy]

At a time when CNN has been struggling to turn around viewership decline, the telecast proved to be a ratings disappointment, with Nielsen reporting just 3.1 million viewers overall. That was a big boost over CNN’s typical 8 p.m. telecast, but a smaller audience than CNN’s town hall with President Biden last summer (3.7 million) and six previous Trump town halls carried by Fox News — calling into question both CNN and Trump’s drawing power.

The more profound impact, however, may be the damage done to the reputation of the network that has long promoted itself as “the most trusted name in news.” It also raised questions about the future prospects of chief executive Chris Licht, who replaced Trump-friend-turned critic Jeff Zucker last year and is charged with striking a more neutral tone at a cable channel that exploded with impassioned commentary during the Trump years.

Journalists at CNN and others outside the organization called the town hall a “debacle,” a “disaster” and “CNN’s lowest moment.” On Twitter, the hashtags and phrases BoycottCNN, DoneWithCNN and ByeCNN trended late Wednesday.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/05/11/trump-cnn-town-hall-chris-licht-kaitlan-collins/

[Tetrachloride]

1. The excerpt seems quite a whitewash of true feelings

regarding the Trump abomination.

[Joinfortmill]

2. CNN may never fully recover from this...as it should be.

[3Hotdogs]

3. Fukkin problem is, I can't boycott that which I never watched in the first place.

[SWBTATTReg]

4. Having a moron on to try and boost ratings is a losing proposition in anybody's book, who in the ...

hell is CNN's CEO? What in the world were they thinking? They did far more damage to the CNN brand than anything that the orange tangerine could have ever said, if he ever said anything intelligent (which I seriously doubt, knowing just how stupid djt is, after listening to him just one time, I swore off ever listening to him again).

[Ray Bruns]

5. Chris Licht. And going trump lite is never a winning strategy.

[BlueMTexpat]

6. May this be only the first

bit of VERY bad news for the Con's New Network!

[dalton99a]

7. Kick

https://archive.ph/45ISk

[Danascot]

8. Of the 3.1 million viewers

probably a sizable chunk were non-trump affiliated bloggers, reporters and commentators watching so they'd have something to say to their followers.

[lark2]

9. Hip hip hurray!!

I quit watching when CNN turned the hard right corner and began firing their progressives. They were my #2 news channel before, now I have them on the same category as Faux - which is don't watch except for a quick check on their coverage of elections - just to get the other side then quickly get off.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

10. CNN Trump Town Hall Flops With Ratings Lower Than 2016

This makes me smile

Link to tweet

https://www.politicususa.com/2023/05/11/cnn-trump-town-hall-ratings.html

The ratings are in for CNN’s Trump town hall, and the special only drew the audience for an average Tucker Carlson show.

Here are the ratings:

Link to tweet

CNN was expecting a ratings bonanza after the E. Jean Carroll verdict, but instead, Trump drew fewer viewers than the last CNN town hall that he did in March 2016 (3.2 million), and it was nearly eight times fewer viewers than the 2015 Republican primary debate that CNN hosted (23 million).

Trump isn’t a huge ratings draw. CNN could have gone out and hired Tucker Carlson and pulled the same or better numbers than they got with Trump......

The fact that Trump didn’t draw an audience means that the ratings magic is long gone. Trump fatigue is real, and if the CNN town hall was a high water mark for his return to mainstream media, it is a bad sign for the Republican hopes of winning back the White House in 2024.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

12. Trump bragged about 'sky high' ratings but his CNN town hall fell short of Biden's

This makes me smile

Link to tweet

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-bragged-about-sky-high-ratings-but-his-cnn-town-hall-fell-short-of-bidens/

Donald Trump on his Truth Social website bragged about the ratings for his CNN town hall.

“People are criticizing CNN for giving me a Forum to tell the TRUTH,” the former president wrote.

“I believe it was a very smart thing that they did, with Sky High Ratings that they haven’t seen in a very long time. It was by far the biggest Show of the night, the week, and the month!”

Perhaps so, but Wednesday night’s town hall attracted fewer viewers than Joe Biden’s 2020 CNN town hall and previous Trump events on Fox News, Salon reports.....

It ranked "2nd among total viewers, closely behind CNN's 2020 Joe Biden Town Hall (9/17/20, 7:59p-9:15p; 3.465 million)" according a network's rankings memo obtained by Salon.