CNN's Summer Of Discontent

Despite being a jam-packed summer of breaking news, viewers continued to flee from the so-called "most trusted name in news," according to FOX News.

From June 1 through August 31, the news cycle did not take a summer vacation, which included the migrant crisis at the southern border, skyrocketing crime in cities across the country, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, growing inflation concerns, the tragic Surfside condo building collapse, the battle over infrastructure spending on Capitol Hill, the shocking overturned conviction of Bill Cosby, the resignation of Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Biden administration's chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

However, none of the major headlines were enough to salvage CNN's dwindling viewership. 

Chris Cuomo

Over the course of 92 days, CNN failed to reach 1 million viewers on 53 of them, roughly 58% of the summer, according to Nielsen data. The network averaged just 603,000 in total day viewership, a staggering 42% decrease from Summer 2020. 

At one point this summer, CNN suffered a 13-day stretch without ever reaching 1 million viewers throughout the entire day from July 28 through August 9. The breaking news of Cuomo's announced resignation broke the network's streak of six-digit viewership on August 10. 

CNN's primetime lineup, which provides the network's most-watched programming, went a whopping 80 out of 92 days below 1 million viewers, a devastating 87% of the time and marking over a 50% drop from last year. 

"Cuomo Prime Time," CNN's most-watched show, average a measly 948,000 viewers from June through August, falling below 1 million viewers over two-thirds of the time whenever anchor Chris Cuomo was on-air, which is a 50% decrease from the 1.9 million viewers he averaged a year ago. By comparison, Fox News' "Hannity" averaged 2.8 million viewers and MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" averaged 2.2 million viewers this summer, neither of them ever falling below 1 million viewers.