CNN sinks to an all new low

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I’d like to congratulate CNN for its most dramatic achievement yet. As you know, Nielson tracks the number of viewers for all television networks. And according to Nielson, for the week of January 16 though January 22, CNN reached for the stars and at last found rating success.

Just kidding. CNN may have reached for the stars, but they took a fall on the way up. The most important age group of viewers for political networks is the 25-54 year old democratic. And CNN managed to harness a grand total of 93.000 viewers in that demographic. Astonishing. It looks like Licht is doing a good job. (sarcasm.)

Perhaps you wonder why I give Licht such a hard time.It’s because I want CNN to succeed. I want that very much. And, in my humble opinion, he’s made CNN worse, not better. And to back that up, I like to show evidence.

I’d also like it if Licht managed to make one good decision, and that isn’t happening anytime soon, I don’t think. But what IS happening is Bill Maher. Licht has decided to air Maher’s show on CNN. This will happen on Friday nights at 11:30 PM, which practically screams that nobody will watch.

Wouldn’t it be nice if CNN actually had a CEO who knows what in the heck they’re doing? I know it’s not easy. But it does seem like if there is a bad decision to be made, Licht will make it. In the meantime, CNN’s hour of 9:00 PM is still vacant. It isn’t surprising. Licht has done a lot of reshuffling, but he appears reluctant to take chances on new faces.

I imagine Licht is not long for the job. The bottom line ALWAYS is the most important thing. If the station’s ratings continue to get worse — and I do not see how they could get much worse — at some point, one has to think that the problem may not be the network but the decision-maker. The decision maker who, for some inexplicable reasons, refuses to make many decisions.

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