That's the searing headline atop Joe Flint's blog post in the LA Times yesterday: "Viewers doing a 180 on Anderson Cooper's '360.'" And this despite the enormous hype that CNN put into La Anderson. As Flint puts it, "CNN has invested heavily into marketing Cooper as the face of the network." Well, as we have all learned over the last year or so, just because you invest heavily in something, doesn't mean that you will have much to show for it! And that seems to be the case with CNN's investment in what might be called "AC 180."
Here's more from our man Flint:
Cooper's ratings have been in a sharp decline all year, and so far the month of May is no exception. According to Nielsen, the audience for the 10-11 p.m. hour of his show so far this month is 933,000 viewers. This is the first time he's fallen below the one-million mark since the dog days of last August. Anderson is losing almost 20% of his lead-in from Larry King and is in danger of being passed in the ratings by MSNBC's 10 p.m. repeat of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann." Since the start of 2009, Cooper has lost one-third of his audience.
