CNN Fails (Again): Jake Tapper's President Biden Interview TANKS In Ratings, His Delayed Primetime Debut Comes In LAST Place
Oct. 12 2022, Published 5:37 p.m. ET
CNN honcho Chris Licht's decision to move Jake Tapper to primetime in a last-ditch effort to save the struggling network backfired. Despite having an exclusive interview with President Joe Biden on the heels of accusations that the feds are closing in on his son, Hunter, Tapper failed to deliver, with his show coming in LAST place against his competitors, RadarOnline.com can report.
CNN Tonight with Jake Tapper failed to reach one million viewers, a hard pill to swallow for Licht. Fox News blew its 9 PM timeslot competitors out of the water with its primetime hit Hannity.
The show, hosted by Sean Hannity, tripled the number of eyeballs that Tapper collected with his Biden one-on-one, bringing in a whopping 2.6 million viewers for the hour.
Hannity more than tripled Tapper's weak debut, revealed early overnight ratings data compiled by Nielsen.
Coming in second was MSNBC’s struggling Alex Wagner Tonight, which still managed to top Tonight With Jake Tapper with 1.536 million viewers. The only positive for CNN's debut was in the key demo of adults 25-54 but it doesn't call for much of a celebration.
RadarOnline.com can confirm that Tapper scratched his way into second place with 189K viewers compared to Wagner’s 132K. However, Hannity still landed in first place with 318K.
As this outlet exclusively reported, Tapper's primetime debut was highly-promoted for an October 10 launch — but it didn't happen until the next night because CNN was nervous about putting him up against his fierce competitor, MSNBC's rating goldmine Rachel Maddow.
The Rachel Maddow Show moved solely to Monday nights in May.
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“CNN was worried about him going up against Rachel Maddow on Monday,” a well-placed source told RadarOnline.com. “Talk about being off to a rocky start.”
The ratings history suggests that may have been the case. The 9 PM hour of MSNBC routinely crushes the same timeslot on CNN – especially with Maddow in the chair.
As RadarOnline.com reveled, CNN is in shambles with Licht scrambling to shake up his on-air lineup in hopes of saving the tanking network. He announced that Tapper would be moving "temporarily” to the 9 PM primetime timeslot ahead of the upcoming midterm elections last month.
The vacant slot, of course, used to belong to Chris Cuomo. The ex-CNN host was fired from the network in December following a string of other scandals at the network.
Licht has dropped the axe on several CNN talents, firing once-network staples like Jeffrey Toobin, Brian Stelter, and John Harwood. He's promised there are more changes to come as he attempts to grow the appeal of the liberal network.
Licht's confidence in Tapper didn't go as planned — not a great sign for the host or the struggling news network.
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