CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper has lost 75 percent of it's audience since January.
Former President Donald Trump has responded to the plunge, calling it a "wonderful thing to see!"
"CNN ratings are down 70%. MSDNC is also way down. Actually, they are ALL way down. They say the news is 'boring' since I left D.C. Morning Joe, Joy Reid (whoever that is?), Nicole Wallace, Jake Tapper, and even Chris Wallace, at Fox, in free fall. A wonderful thing to see!" Trump wrote.
Tapper responded to the jab from Trump on Twitter, writing "if I had incited and inspired a deadly insurrection and attempt to undo American democracy I might not be out there bragging about how many viewers it had. On any channel."
"But maybe that’s just me, I’m a different breed of cat," Tapper added.
Matt Dornic, CNN's head of strategic communications, threw any attempt at appearing non-biased out the window with his response.
"Imagine that. People are vaccinated, no longer terrified, and out enjoying their lives. If the trade-off is that every news net’s ratings are down, I’ll take it," Dornic tweeted.
Your World with Neil Cavuto, which airs on Fox News at the same time, has not experienced a similar sudden drop in interest.
Fox News reports that Tapper’s program averaged 2.8 million viewers in January but settled for only 706,000 in the 4 p.m. ET timeslot from May 31 through June 23, losing three-quarters of its audience in the process. Tapper’s second-quarter viewership is down 49% compared to the first quarter.
"Tapper has also lost significant viewers among the key news demographic of adults age 25-54, dropping 79% of January’s audience during the first three weeks of June in his timeslot," the report states. "Tapper’s show is down 47% in the second quarter compared to Q1 among the category most coveted by advertisers."
"CNN averaged a dismal 654,000 viewers during the second quarter. By comparison, Fox News averaged 1.2 million during the same time period to finish No. 1 in all of basic cable. CNN failed to crack the one-million viewer threshold during the primetime hours of 8-11 p.m. ET," Fox also noted.
Despite the ratings tanking, CNN gave Tapper an extra hour beginning in April — expanding the failing show from 4-6 p.m.
CNN has often tried to bill Tapper as a "fair and balanced" old school non-partisan anchor, but his constant attacks on Republicans are impossible to ignore.
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