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CNN Celebrates Mike Rowe’s Premiere Ratings, Still Lags Behind Fox News

Al Weaver Reporter
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CNN’s Wednesday debut of Mike Rowe’s new show “Somebody’s Gotta Do It” must have universally put smiles on the faces of executives at the Turner network.

Rowe’s show became the networks best Original Series premiere ever, averaging 507k viewers in the ever-important 25-54 demo, while also averaging 943k in total viewers, according to Nielsen National Data.

Prior to the Rowe premiere, CNN’s highest Original Series premiere was “The Hunt with John Walsh,” which garnered 330k in the demo, while averaging 989k in total viewers.

While CNN was quite happy with the ratings boon, they still didn’t top a normal, run-of-the-mill “Kelly File” episode, which scored 544k in the demo with more than 2.7 million viewers overall, about three times as many as CNN.

Meanwhile, CNN didn’t hesitate to mention how badly they crushed MSNBC Wednesday night, noting their shows from 8-10 pm all rated higher than their counterparts on the network that “leans forward” in every way except when it comes to ratings.

Rowe’s debut beat “The Rachel Maddow Show” in both the demo (507k vs. 143k) and in total viewers (943k vs. 757k), while “AC 360” and “CNN Tonight” beat “All In With Chris Hayes” and “Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell,” respectively, by substantial margins.