Department of Redundancy Department: CNN Continues Ratings Death Plunge

We could do this monthly or quarterly and just plug in the same text and just leave space for the new numbers. Same story, different day: Fox rises, CNN plummets, MSNBC continues to flounder.

Maybe the idiotic left who snivel and whine about Fox News Channel might step back and realize it is they who are responsible for sending so many viewers their way by constantly talking about them. But hey, who are we to give advice to these clowns?

CNN continued what has become a precipitous decline in ratings for its prime-time programs in the first quarter of 2010, with its main hosts losing almost half their viewers in a year.

The trend in news ratings for the first three months of this year is all up for one network, the Fox News Channel, which enjoyed its best quarter ever in ratings, and down for both MSNBC and CNN.

CNN had a slightly worse quarter in the fourth quarter of 2009, but the last three months have included compelling news events, like the earthquake in Haiti and the battle over health care, and CNN, which emphasizes its hard news coverage, was apparently unable to benefit.

The losses at CNN continued a pattern in place for much of the last year, as the network trailed its competitors in every prime-time hour. (CNN still easily beats MSNBC in the daytime hours, but those are less lucrative in advertising money, and both networks are far behind Fox News at all hours.)

About the only break from the bad news for CNN was that March was not as bad as February, when the network had its worst single month in its recent history, finishing behind not only Fox News and MSNBC, but also its sister network HLN — and even CNBC, which had Olympics programming that month.

That's like being diagnosed with a terminal illness and being given an extra week to live.

Some solace.

You have to appreciate the NY Times reporter with this wry sense of humor.

CNN executives have steadfastly said that they will not change their approach to prime-time programs, which are led by hosts not aligned with any partisan point of view.

Yeah, except for their alignment with the Democratic Party, they're all very nonpartisan.

Even in the morning, CNN is sliding. Its “American Morning” show dropped behind “Morning Joe” on MSNBC in total viewers for the first time; it still beat the MSNBC show among 25- to 54-year-olds, though it was down 29 percent from a year earlier.

At the same time, Fox News, which had its biggest year in 2009, continues to add viewers. Greta Van Susteren’s show was up 25 percent from a year earlier. Bill O’Reilly, whose show commands the biggest audience in prime time with 3.65 million viewers, was up 28 percent, and Glenn Beck was up 50 percent from a year earlier.

MSNBC is such an afterthought their primetime hosts aren't even mentioned in the story.