CNN's all day coverage of the crippled Carnival Triumph's slow return to port may have attracted a lot of scorn from Jon Stewart and Joe Scarborough but it pulled in a hefty number of viewers too. Focusing on the powerless cruise ship's tug into Mobile, Alabama, the cable news network got a 43% boost in total day viewership from last Thursday. That 565,000 from 395,000 rise also gave CNN a 54% jump among Adults 25-54 over the same day last week.
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If this shift away from traditional CNN menu of international and domestic political events is a part of new boss Jeff Zucker's plan to turn to the ratings challenged CNN around, it certainly had a positive ratings effect in the short term last night. While not beating Fox News Channel in overall viewers or in primetime yesterday, CNN was number one in the key demo at 10 and 11 PM when the ship was finally being brought into dock. CNN garnered 400,000 in the 25-54 between 10 PM and midnight compared to the 252,000 FNC got and the 132,000 of MSNBC as they covered the cruise ship's movement during the same time period. In primetime overall CNN was up 30% from last week in total viewers with 1.024 million compared to the 785,000 who watched on February 7. In the Adults 25-54 demo, the network saw a spike upwards of 74% compared to last week's primetime with 295,000 compared to the 169,000 of February 7. Having said that, the network's Carnival cruise ship coverage didn't smell like roses to everyone. "CNN has been on the case, for some reason giving this boat crisis wall-to-shit-covered-wall coverage, treating a stalled cruise ship like it's the Shackleton expedition," said Daily Show host Stewart last night before the Triumph had even reached dry land. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe early Friday, Scarborough talked about how the civil war in Syria and the Senate battle over potential Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel faded into the background. “We don’t have to worry anymore because CNN tells us that this cruise ship was the only story that mattered yesterday for 24 hours,” the co-host said.
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