This is what is known as your basic flood of bad press. Vanity Fair coverboy and media darling Anderson Cooper isn't bringing home the ratings, and people--and the critics--are noticing.
As Lisa de Moraes pointed out in the Washington Post this week, she doesn't get what all the fuss is about with Cooper signing with "60 Minutes"--and makes a very shrewd behaviorial-psychology observation in the process:
"I'm very excited by the opportunity to work at '60 Minutes,' " Cooper said in a canned quote for the news release. "I grew up watching the broadcast and, like many Americans, still try to make sure I'm home Sunday nights at 7 so I can see it. I'm truly honored to be part of '60 Minutes' and look forward to working with [executive producer] Jeff Fager and all the other remarkable talents at CBS News. I can't wait to get started."
That's six "I's," in case you're counting.
Cooper's show averaged 151,000 18- to 49-year-olds last month. Steve Colbert's "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central is averaging 716,000 18- to 49-year-olds these days. Better get to work on that Colbert bio.
Glenn Garvin of the Miami Herald isn't having it either--he's pointing at Cooper's CNN numbers and rolling his eyes at the hype over who he calls the "media-flavor-of-the-month":
Kids, pay attention in math class. Otherwise, you might grow up to be one of the numbers-illiterate folks at CBS News, who announced Monday with great fanfare that they’ve contracted with CNN’s Anderson Cooper to do five stories a year for 60 Minutes. If the CBS people were able to calculate percentages, they’d know that since the media-flavor-of-the-month Cooper took over last year from tired old Aaron Brown as anchor of CNN’s 10 p.m. to midnight news show, he’s lost 23 percent of the time slot’s viewers. In the 25-to-54 age bracket that news programmers value, the loss is an even more startling 36 percent. Oh, well. Maybe Katie Couric can help out in her spare time.
And rounding out the wait-a-minute-here trifecta is Phil Rosenthal at the Chicago Tribune, who also wants to train a bright light on those pesky numbers again:
...while Cooper offers a penetrating stare, an empathetic tone and relative youth--at 38, the former host of "The Mole" is 22 years younger than Steve Kroft and spots Andy Rooney almost half a century--what he does not bring to "60 Minutes" is a large fan base.
"Anderson Cooper 360" was down 23 percent in total viewership and 36 percent among viewers between the ages of 25 and 54 in April from what Aaron Brown was doing in April 2005. Granted, the death of Pope John Paul II boosted those '05 numbers, but Cooper is still averaging only 701,000 viewers.
Stay tuned...for more viewers not staying tuned to CNN...
