CNN attempted to make a comeback with its new show, “King Charles.” The show, which stars former NBA superstar Charles Barkley and CBS personality and journalist Gayle King, was meant to signal a CNN return but instead opened in a decidedly dismal way, barely bringing in half a million viewers.
As background, “King Charles” is a weekly show that plays at 10 p.m. EST on Wednesday nights. During the broadcasts, Barkley and Gayle discuss cultural, social, and political issues. This Wednesday, for example, during the premiere, the show included featured interviews with Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, Fat Joe (a rapper), and the journalists hired to cover Taylor Swift and Beyoncé specifically.
In any case, the new show’s low opening was not only disappointing on its own, as a show with half a million viewers would be far from good for most of the major cable channels, but was made even worse by it being a premiere of the show, which theoretically would boost it a bit.
In fact, it performed quite poorly compared to other premieres. According to the Daily Best, the Wednesday premiere of King Charles was the worst weeknight premier for CNN in at least a decade, with CNN’s other debuts in its post-Chris Licht programming doing somewhat better.
Nielsen, giving some data on the show which shows just how poorly it did, notes that King Charles managed to bring in just 501,000 total viewers, of whom just 139,000 were in the much-desired advertising demographic of adults aged 25-54.
By way of comparison, a show called The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, which also airs on MSNBC, CNN’s closets cable competitor, at 10 p.m., tripled King Charles’ ratings. It managed to draw in a much more respectable 1.621 million viewers overall. It had just 132,000 viewers in the advertising demographic, losing slightly to King Charles on that front.
Meanwhile, the Fox News offering for 10 p.m., Gutfeld! did far better than both. Gutfeld’s hit FNC show did less well than Tucker’s show used to do but won the cable news hour with 1.973 million total viewers, of whom 257,000 were in the advertising demographic.
Another comes from CNN itself. The other show that runs at 10 p.m. on the other weeknights for the network, manages to bring in an average of 481,000 viewers, so slightly worse than King Charles did in its premier. That show is CNN Newsnight with Abby Phillip. However, Phillip’s show brought in 645,000 viewers for its debut in October, which indicates that even rougher ratings could be in store for CNN’s King Charles.
Another example of a show on CNN that debuted somewhat recently with better ratings than King Charles is, according to The Daily Beast, The Source with Kaitlan Collins. It managed to draw in 540,000 total viewers when it premiered on July 10, though it brought in only 83,000 viewers in the key advertising demographic.
It remains to be seen if CNN can get back on its feet and bring back ratings, or if Chris Licht’s days of dismal ratings were just the network’s new normal and will be a barrier over which it struggles to cross given audience’s lack of interest and a reputation wrecked by the Trump years.
By Chensiyuan – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90457868
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