It is no secret CNN has been struggling to attract cable news audiences in recent years. That struggle continues, and former network host Keith Olbermann believes it’s just more proof that the medium is on its last legs.
During his Countdown with Keith Olbermann podcast, the former CNN and MSNBC host argued that ratings for the pair of Republican Town Hall events and the new series King Charles — hosted by Charles Barkley and Gayle King — show there’s a waning interest in cable news.
“The total number of viewers in primetime on CNN (for Vivek Ramaswamy’s town hall)?591,000. I mean, television news is dying, but it’s not dying that fast. That’s five episodes of this podcast. Whatever CNN thought it was gaining, putting that paranoid manure salesman I can only guess,” Olbermann said. “Ramaswamy even had 31,000 fewer viewers than Ron DeSantis did on Tuesday. He drew fewer viewers than his lead in Anderson Cooper did. 591,000 viewers. Good God, even Erin Burnett had 659,000!”
He then turned his attention toward King Charles, which has struggled to gain its footing through its first three weekly episodes.
“453,000 viewers for a news show in which Charles Barkley and Gayle King talked about something, and it actually lost a quarter of Vivek Ramaswamy’s invisible audience. And King Charles is somehow down 10% from its disastrous launch ratings.
“This brings us back to Trump, politics, and a culture in which if you don’t like reality, just call it a liar. You want it to be day and it’s night? You can just shout loudly enough that it really is day and you and only you can see the fact that it’s day. Barkley responded to his humiliating failure on the first night of this show by blaming the ratings company. He said the ratings can’t be right. He implied because he doesn’t know anybody with a Nielsen box…Chuck, you’re not good at this. Nobody’s interested in you doing it and you’re not honest about it with yourself or anybody else.”
