Who's Sorry Now? CNN, maybe.
Hey, we coulda told you that Anderson is a loser....not sure why, either, because, like the article says, everything on paper is fine. But there's something that doesn't click. He's too much the "everyman" when clearly he isn't? His hair is too perfect? His questions are lame? Whatever, it's not working. Watch for a change soon from CNN.
The Cooper Enigma: Anderson’s A Star, But Numbers StinkCNN’s Silvery Cover Boy Only Watched by 630,000—But They’re Big Fans! Larry King Drop-Off
By Rebecca Dana
By most standards, Anderson Cooper looks like a winner. The CNN anchor, Yale graduate, Vanderbilt heir and brand-new 60 Minutes correspondent hosts two hours of live television a night. His face (that hair!) adorned the June Vanity Fair, which sold 375,000 newsstand copies. On June 20 and 21, Mr. Cooper conducted two “big get” interviews—first Angelina Jolie, then Cher. On June 26, he flew to New Orleans for a series of packed readings from his book, Dispatches from the Edge, for which he received a handsome advance and which topped the New York Times best-seller list until last week, when Ann Coulter finally knocked it off.
But there is one pesky measure of victory that Mr. Cooper doesn’t quite satisfy: He doesn’t actually win.
On average, only some 630,000 viewers a night tune in to Anderson Cooper 360, to watch Anderson Cooper do his professional duties.
It’s not just that Anderson Cooper 360 doesn’t get American Idol ratings. Or that it doesn’t get Grey’s Anatomy ratings or O’Reilly Factor ratings or On the Record with Greta van Susteren ratings.
Many nights, Mr. Cooper doesn’t even do as well as his predecessor Aaron Brown, the ice to his fire, the old-fashioned, bespectacled anchor who was booted in 2005 to make room for Mr. Cooper.
CNN president Jon Klein calls Mr. Cooper “the anti-anchor.” If an anchor is someone people regularly watch host a news program, Mr. Klein may be onto something.
In April, Mr. Cooper’s ratings were down more than 20 percent—and 36 percent in the 25-to-54 demographic—from Mr. Brown’s numbers the previous April.
In May—the month his memoir came out—Mr. Cooper’s total audience climbed from 562,000 to 636,000. It slipped to 632,000 in June. Those numbers were better than Mr. Brown’s numbers from a year ago—when he refused to cover Natalee Holloway and his audience plunged into the 400,000’s.
