360DigitalInfluence

The folks at Mediaite, Dan Abrams’ new Web site, have an interesting take on the way CNN and MSNBC have been spinning the results of the most recent cable news ratings.

In short, MSNBC promotes its victory over CNN in the advertiser friendly 25-54 demo in prime time.  CNN attempts to change to measurement metrics — again — to claim they are number one.  (And not for the first time — CNN was happy to promote their lead in total viewers until they lost it to Fox and then claimed the real metric was viewers in the 25-54 demo, until they started losing to both Fox and MSNBC.)

Mediaite also examines the ads the two channels have taken out.  By the way, as they point out, no matter how they spin it, they both finish far behind Fox News Channel in both total viewers and in the 25-54 demo.

Now, of course, all of this will prolly change in July as CNN has riden the death of Michael Jackson to its highest ratings since the Democratic primaries.  That said, the cable channels will run out of Michael Jackson stories soon.  Right? (Oh please, oh please, oh please — stop the insanity!)