June #’s: Pre-Olympic Ratings For Hardball

> Update: 3:04pm: “Maybe CNN should pay more attention to the fact that their primetime audience is down by 18% in the demo, while MSNBC is up 19%,” an MSNBC spokesperson retorts. “Oh, did I mention that Hardball is up 33% in the demo this quarter?”

Back in February, when Hardball beat The Situation Room in the 25-54 demo, CNN swore it was just an Olympic bounce. They said Wolf Blitzer would beat Chris Matthews again once the sports boost subsided. Based on June’s ratings, they were right: Hardball is back to pre-Olympic levels. CNN created this chart to show the monthly trend. Click it to view full-size:



Still, in the second quarter, Hardball is up 33 percent in the demo compared to Q2 2005. CNN is up 8 percent and FNC is down 16 percent. Among total viewers, MSNBC is up 27 percent, CNN is up 13 percent, and FNC is down 4 percent at 7pm…

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.