NY POST – MSNBC and CNN suffered staggering losses in viewership over the past year — while Donald Trump’s ascendancy supercharged Fox News in the cable news ratings war.
The left-leaning networks — which will both be spun off by their respective parent companies — suffered year-over-year declines in all major metrics for the second quarter compared to the same period last year, according to the latest Nielsen data, which was reported by AdWeek.
Comcast-owned MSNBC, with its rabid anti-Trump lineup of anchors, drew an average 1.008 million primetime viewers from April to June, a year-over-year decline of 15%, Nielsen figures show.
In the the advertiser-covered 25-to-54 demographic, primetime viewership plunged 20%, to 91,000 compared to last year — despite star anchor Rachel Maddow returning to full-time duty during the first 100 days of the Trump administration.
The exodus of eyeballs was even worse during the day, with total viewership plummeting 26%, to an average of 596,000, and 31%, to 57,000, in the key demo compared to the same quarter last year.
CNN, which has languished in last place despite paying anchor Anderson Cooper a reported $18 million in salary, averaged 538,000 total viewers in primetime for the three-month period and 105,000 in the demo, according to Nielsen …
