Cable news ratings, December 28, 2010:

•Perhaps Piers Morgan might want to launch his show a bit sooner? Admittedly, it’s the week between Christmas and New Year’s and most shows are seeing lower-than-normal ratings, but CNN had it’s worst night in a decade Tuesday: according to Nielsen, last night was CNN’s lowest rated weeknight since May of 2000 (among viewers 25-54, the key demographic for advertisers). The numbers were dismal across the board, with every hour from 6 p.m. through midnight averaging less than 100,000 viewers. After the soon-to-be-replaced Larry King Live, the poorest performing show was AC360, with a meager 61,000 viewers 25-54 at 10 p.m.



•Fox News, meanwhile, stayed dominant even on an off week, with all of Fox’s key primetime shows winning their timeslots but one–the 11 p.m. re-air of The O’Reilly Factor, which lost out not to any of MSNBC’s standard news and politics fare, but the true crime series Lockup.

Here’s the full scoreboard:

TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD) 5 pm Beck 400 Blitzer 112 Matthews 161 Showbiz 63 6 pm Baier 355 Blitzer 91 Ed Show 147 Prime 87 7 pm Shep 335 King, USA 83 Matthews 135 Issues 111 8 pm O’Reilly 365 ParkerSpitzer 73 Olbermann 128 Grace 148 9 pm Hannity 263 King 54 Maddow 99 Behar 77 10 pm Van Susteren 168 Cooper 61 Special 184 Grace 87 11 pm O’Reilly 196 Cooper 63 Special 230 Showbiz 81 TOTAL DAY 228 93 129 101 PRIME TIME 265 64 137 101 Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.

TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD) 5 pm Beck 1637 Blitzer 548 Matthews 668 Showbiz 138 6 pm Baier 1983 Blitzer 411 Ed Show 598 Prime 224 7 pm Shep 1618 King, USA 303 Matthews 531 Issues 364 8 pm O’Reilly 1789 ParkerSpitzer 340 Olbermann 603 Grace 556 9 pm Hannity 1256 King 266 Maddow 446 Behar 322 10 pm Van Susteren 904 Cooper 381 Special 324 Grace 255 11 pm O’Reilly 683 Cooper 232 Special 355 Showbiz 231 TOTAL DAY 1218 358 385 257 PRIME TIME 1316 331 457 367 Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data

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