CNN’s decision to cover one story â€" of a stranded Carnival cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico â€" like no other channel could on Thursday appeared to pay off when the Nielsen ratings came in on Friday.
The channel, which usually loses to MSNBC and Fox News on a daily basis, easily beat MSNBC and came much closer to Fox than it usually does.
The ratings could be seen as a justification both for CNN’s coverage â€" which was engrossing but also easy to criticize â€" and for the channel’s investment in a helicopter rental, a boat rental and a legion of reporters on the ground in Mobile, Ala., where the cruise ship was eventually towed into port late Thursday.
At noon on Thursday, CNN started covering te ship to the exclusion of most other stories. For the whole day CNN had an average of 632,000 viewers watching at any given time, up about 50 percent versus typical Thursdays this year. MSNBC had 535,000, down slightly. Fox News remained on top with 1.38 million, up slightly.
The same was true in prime time, when the ship neared the port of Mobile. CNN had an average of 1.03 million viewers at any given time from 8 to 11 p.m., up 62 percent versus typical Thursdays this year. MSNBC had fewer â€" 867,000 â€" and Fox had more, 2.14 million. Those two channels mostly stuck with their regular lineups until the ship was within sight of the port of Mobile.
CNN, on the other hand, went wall-to-wall with cellphone interviews of ship passengers and aerial pictures of the ship’s slow-motion arrival. “Sweet Home Alabama,†the CNN graphics read at one point as passengers debarked. The channel stayed with live coverage until 1:30 a.m., three and a half hours after it usually switches to taped p! rogramming.
The saturation was admonished by some critics of the news media, but embraced by some subset of viewers, as the ratings indicated. It was interpreted as a strategy of Jeffrey Zucker, who took over CNN Worldwide less than a month ago. Mr. Zucker has encouraged CNN producers to play up other big stories since then, including the presidential inauguration, the manhunt for a fugitive in Southern California and the State of the Union. During the weekend of the inauguration, CNN added extra hours of live coverage from a prime spot on the National Mall; during the blizzard in New England, CNN stayed live all night with special news coverage. The channel was pleased withits ratings for the State of the Union this week.
