All the cable news networks can thank "balloon boy" for a ratings boost on Thursday, October 15, but as is typical with a big breaking news story, CNN benefited the most at 5pm. This chart is thanks to the work of reader Dave.
And here is an updated chart of the Glenn Beck viewership vs. the combined competition at 5pm through October 15. This is a collaboration between two of our readers. Reader Dave created the chart using the data patiently assembled by reader MikeS.
The trend lines above are 30 day moving averages.
For complete information on all cable news ratings check our daily cable news ratings posts.
Anybody else wanting to produce trend charts of any of our other data, drop me an email.
Nielsen Cable Network Coverage Estimates (as of September, 2009)
CNN/HLN: 99.10 million HHs
CNBC: 96.78 million HHs
FNC: 96.26 million HHs
MSNBC: 92.64 million HHs
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
BTW Glen Beck didn’t cover Balloon Boy at all, Situation Room was still covering it in the 5pm-6pm hour until they got wind that the boy was found. then they moved back to politics. Not sure about the others….
CNN is definately the “go to” network for breaking news. Although the the balloon story did turn out to be overinflated.
I have looked at an awful lot of this 5:00pm data and one thing I am amazed by is the ‘stability’ of Chris Mathew’s; not the mental stability of Chris or his viewers, but of his viewership numbers
Like in the plot above, his numbers always average around 500K – 600K and never vary from that; EVER! Through thick and thin, he always has the same viewership with very little day to day variance. It’s a straight line. I think an atomic bomb could go off, and roughly 550 thousand people would still watch Chris Mathews?
Can any one posit a reason for this? The numbers for ALL of the other commentators jump all over the place; both long term and day to day.
As an example, over the last month, the standard deviation for Mathews has been 64K. Beck is 275K, O’Reilly is 336K and Olbermann is 205K. Mathews has the lowest number of ALL cable news shows. Having said that, you don’t have to be a statistician to notice it … It’s obvious just looking at the charts/data.
Possible reasons for Chris Matthews’ “stability”:
1- His viewers are robots, real ones.
2- Viewing his show is a ritual where viewers tune in at the exact same time every day of the week for a collective “thrill up a leg”, without which the day is incomplete.
3- When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose; and in Matthews’ case, you have nothing to gain either.
4- Perhaps one ought to look at the standard deviation relative to average rather than in absolute terms.
On Thursday, Oct. 15, these were the ratings at 5 P.M.
Glenn Beck – 3,222,000 viewers (1,000,000) (1,559,000)
Situation Room—1,914,000 viewers (607,000) (832,000)
Hardball w/ Chris Matthews—663,000 viewers (151,000) (302,000)
Fast Money—269,000 viewers (a scratch w/49,000) (119,000)
Prime News–568,000 viewers (265,000) (284,000)
The Cable News stations had a total of 3,414,000 viewers. Fox had 3,222,000.
Looking at the chart, it appears that Fox had about 2,800,000 and the News Stations had 1,500,000.
Even if we eliminate the ratings for CNBC, we get Fox with 3,222,000 and the News Stations with 3,145,000.
The chart seems to visually misrepresent the actual data for that individual day to show a much bigger gap between Fox and the News Channels on that day.
We already know Beck gets many more viewers than the competition combined – we should add Syfy and Lifetime to his news competition to see if he beats them all at that hour too. I think a Glenn Beck vs. Bill O’Reilly trend chart would be the most interesting. Didn’t Beck’s ratings beat an O’Reilly guest host on a single day at some point this summer? Maybe a trend chart could predict when or if he’ll finally overtake O’Reilly’s 8:00 ratings from the 5:00 slot. I doubt O’Reilly wants to give up his Best Rated Show In Cable News 8 Years Running commercial tagline.
Interesting observations about Matthews in this thread too.
Philosopher, “The Cable News stations had a total of 3,414,000 viewers.” Where did you get that number? The four networks in the chart had over 7 million average viewers at 5pm on Thursday?
Note that the chart doesn’t include CNBC (Fast Money), but otherwise I think It perfectly shows the Thursday numbers:
Glenn Beck – 3,222,000 viewers
Situation Room—1,914,000 viewers
Hardball w/ Chris Matthews—663,000 viewers
Prime News–568,000 viewers
Perhaps you should take another look.
Often higher ratings, that is, to correct my previous post. I’d love to see the trend chart though.
I agree with Burn-e, their should be a Beck vs. O’reilly trend chart.
Wonder if the bubble boy is jealous of all this new kids pub.
Philosopher Jay,
OMG, you are the last person on earth that should be “throwing stones” when it comes to misrepresenting data! I have tried to have a civil discourse with you over the past few weeks about the proper treatment/analysis of data; I’m done!
There is always the possibility of a typo when I enter the numbers into Excel for a particular day, but I assure you that I try to enter them accurately and I plot what I get. I copied and pasted the 9/15 numbers below that were used to make the above chart.
FNC=3222k
CNN=1914k
MSNBC=663k
HLN=568k
If you would like tell me which number you believe in error, I will gladly address it.
If someone with any credibility whatsoever finds an error in my data, I will humbly suck-it-up, apologize for the mistake, and fix it. That being said, I don’t at all appreciate the not so subtle implication that the chart “visually misrepresents” the actual data; especially coming from you. I think you are a genuinely confused soul … misrepresenting data is what you do on this site on a daily basis. The rest of us respect data and try to make it easier to understand and discuss in rational ways.
Actually, if there really is a mistake above that needs fixing, get one of your friends to post a note about or I won’t see it … I’m finished reading any posts that originate from you. You’re lucky they don’t give me access to the delete key! I don’t know how you ever got a Ph.D because my dog is more trainable than you; and he’s an extremely stubborn beagle! I really feel sorry for your students … I’ll pray for them.
P.S. My sincerest apologies to the rest of you who have to read this. I just broke every rule I have established for myself regarding posting comments here … but I’ve had all I can stands, I can stands no more! Again, sorry.
Burn-E says:
“I think a Glenn Beck vs. Bill O’Reilly trend chart would be the most interesting”
At some level I understand your interest, but can’t bring myself to compare data from different time slots that inherently have different numbers of ‘available’ viewers, different competition, etc. That’s not a fair comparison and I cringe when I see others attempt to do it. I’m not even sure that Bill would post such a chart if I made it?
Dave M, I understand the broadcast time slot differences, but Beck is getting such tremendous ratings the “unfairness” of the competition (whether for available viewers, different time slots, etc) may become a moot point if Beck actually DOES beat O’Reilly’s total viewer numbers or demo. A disclaimer about the unfairness could be put in to put others at ease though.
It would be interesting to see a trend chart but thank you for the charts we do have.
If I may chime in… if someone has already entered the data, it would be very interesting to see a chart of the 5pm shows from before Beck started on FNC through the present.
I’m just curious if he took viewers from the other shows or if many are ‘new’ viewers. My guess would be he took SOME from other shows, but has gotten mostly new viewers. I think there are many, many Americans that haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to politics before because they thought there were certain things (like capitalism, individual freedom, love of country, etc.) both parties agreed with, and are now shocked and scared to death at the depth of destruction of our society this adminisration seems to be pursuing.
If anyone has the data and can turn it into a chart, I thank you.
FYI, I made a mistake above when I said the numbers were from 9/15; they are from 10/15. See, I do make typos …
Does anyone know what time slot Beck occupied while on CNN in 2008?
Dave M says:
October 17, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Does anyone know what time slot Beck occupied while on CNN in 2008?
6 or 7, been awhile so don’t remember exactly.
Dave M. no apology necessary. Philosopher Jay gives philosophy a bad name. He is truly untrainable and I am afraid appears a little dense.I think we should all ignore anything he says about data because he has no knowledge of how to use it. Thanks for the charts– the real way to use data.
In my creation of the post I did forget to include the text below the long term chart noting that the line was a 30 day moving average. I have added it to the post.
MikeB: Glenn Beck was on CNN’s Headline News Network in the same slot occupied by Joy Behar now. Oddly, although his ratings went up tremendously when he moved to FNC, Headline News also improved its ratings when he left too. An unusual win/win for both networks, although I don’t know what Behar is doing relative to her replacement.
I heard that replacement was doing slightly better than Beck’s original HLN show, just as Behar is, but I don’t even remember what that replacement program was. I guess it didn’t keep its ratings for long because Behar replaced it.