CNN Ratings Disaster: Primetime Audience Tumbles Below 500,000

CNN’s primetime ratings on Wednesday dipped below 500,000 viewers, with less than 100,000 of those coming from the 25-54-year-old demographic.

CNN’s ratings dipped below 500,000 after 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday evening during “The Source with Kaitlan Collins,” according to AdWeek. Collins pulled 464,000 total viewers while “NewsNight with Abby Phillip” in the 10 p.m. hour followed with 459,000. “Laura Coates Live” finished off primetime’s 11 p.m. hour for CNN with 269,000.

“Anderson Cooper 360” was the only primetime CNN performance with over half-a-million viewers, pulling in 535,000.

All the network’s primetime shows failed to break 100,000 viewers for the coveted 25-54 demographic. Cooper had the best showing with 93,000, then Phillip with 90,000, then Collins with 76,000, and Coates ended the night with just 46,000 viewers in the age group.

 The new numbers are a troubling sign for the network.

“CNN’s full-scale collapse continues rapidly. It reaches a remarkable new low led by @kaitlancollins and @abbydphillip: fewer than 500,000 viewers total in prime-time! That’s almost impossible to do even if you wanted it,” independent journalist Glenn Greenwald noted. “Also, they’re well below 100k for viewers under 55.”

CNN's full-scale collapse continues rapidly. It reaches a remarkable new low led by @kaitlancollins and @abbydphillip: fewer than 500,000 viewers total in prime-time! That's almost impossible to do even if you wanted it.

Also, they're well below 100k for viewers under 55. pic.twitter.com/4gG4jMWBTH

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 27, 2025

The best hour on CNN was still behind MSNBC’s worst hour and far below the worst hour on Fox News. “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle” at 11 p.m. on MSNBC brought in 799,000 total viewers with 99,000 in the 25-54 demographic. Fox News’ “FOX News @ Night” with Trace Gallagher brought in over 1.5 million total viewers with 194,000 in the key demographic.

CNN has struggled with ratings for years. One week in November saw the network mark its lowest-rated week since June 2001, bringing in an average of just 268,000 viewers. During the same week, Fox News averaged 1.4 million viewers.

In 2022, the failure of CNN+, the network’s shot at an online streaming service, rocked the outlet. Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company, invested roughly $300 million into launching the online platform and brought on big names such as Chris Wallace to sustain it, only for it to collapse shortly after launch.

Several years before that collapse of CNN+, the outlet settled a $275 million lawsuit brought against it by Nicholas Sandmann, who was maligned by many in the media as a student of Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky when he was filmed in an incident with a Native American activist.

Bernie Says Dems Lack ‘Vision For The Future’

On Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) chided the Democrats, saying they lack a “vision for the future.”

The critique was made as Sanders was being interviewed by moderator Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” who brought up the senator’s so-called “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

“What Democrats lack right now is a vision for the future,” Sanders said. “How are we going to provide a decent standard of living for a younger generation, which, everything being equal, will be poorer than their parents? How do we repair a broken healthcare system? How do we raise the minimum wage to a living wage? How do we deal with a corrupt campaign finance system that allows billionaires to control both political parties?”

He added: “Those are some of the issues that need to be discussed. And we’re going out around the country right now asking people – working people, run for office. They want to run as a Democrat? Great. They want to run as an independent? That’s great. But you got to get involved in the political process, because right now, the two party system is failing the working class of this country.”

Sanders made the comment in the middle of responding to a question from Welker, who asked if he was trying to start a third party given his two failed campaigns in the Democratic Party’s presidential primaries over the years.

“No, we’re not trying to start a third party,” Sanders said. “What we’re trying to do is strengthen American democracy, where faith in both the Democratic and Republican parties right now is extremely low.”

He said that Democrats are “appropriately” talking about President Donald Trump’s “movement toward authoritarianism” while opposing the GOP’s reconciliation bill and the work of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk.

Sanders also pushed back against Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who urged Democrats to stop harping on the “oligarchy” because the term does not resonate beyond coastal institutions, according to POLITICO.

“I think the American people are not quite as dumb as Ms. Slotkin thinks they are,” Sanders said. “I think they understand very well, when the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%, when big money interests are able to control both political parties, they are living in an oligarchy. And these are precisely the issues that have got to be talked about.”

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