Osama bin Laden's death leads to huge boost in CNN and other news ratings

News of Osama bin Laden's death made Americans turn their dials to the cable news networks on Sunday night.

CNN, which tends to deliver its highest ratings in breaking-news cycles, led the cable race with 7.8 million total viewers during the 8 p.m. hour (Los Angeles time), when President Obama officially announced the death in a live national address, according to the Nielsen Co. Fox News Channel averaged 4.8 million and MSNBC 2.3 million.

Overall from 7 p.m. to midnight, CNN averaged 4.1 million viewers, up an astronomical 981% from its Sunday average the previous four weeks.

The picture among the broadcasters was a bit more unclear. NBC was the first big network to cut in to its regular programming, with a special report around 7:45 p.m. Los Angeles time that preempted the final minutes of Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” on the East Coast. Within minutes, all the networks had reported the death and were awaiting the White House statement.

NBC and CBS stayed with the story until about 9 p.m., at which point they returned to scheduled programs. ABC hung on to the story for another hour.

“We had substantially more reporting than some of our competitors so we had a lot to talk about,” said ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider, adding that the news division had conducted numerous drills for how to handle news of bin Laden’s death or capture.

The broadcast ratings will be inconclusive until Nielsen releases final numbers on Tuesday morning. But based on early results, CBS won the night with an average of 9.5 million total viewers. The night’s most-watched program was CBS’ “60 Minutes” (10.6 million viewers), which aired a highly publicized segment on the sexual assault of reporter Lara Logan by a mob in Egypt.

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— Scott Collins (twitter.com/scottcollinsLAT)

Photo: President Obama on Sunday, announcing the death of Osama bin Laden. Credit: Jason Reed/Reuters.

Comments

[Alvin Atlewood]

It's actually a pretty sad state of affairs in the good ol' U.S. of A. if CNN lead the (network) pack when the President was about to make the announcement of Osama's death. For more than an hour, prior to the announcement, Wolf Blitzer, John King, and Ed Henry filled the air by saying ... exactly nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was a startling display of filling time ... and quite pathetic. Eventually switched to another channel ...

[billaye]

i dont think so US killed bin laden, where is the body now? all of the news are talking about his death but where is exactly the body now? all we see is the cuffin? whats inside that cuffin? thats the question...

[BILL KINGSBOROUGH]

I feel the people of the United States have the right to see this mans body. Especially those who live in New York. All the relatives of those that were murdered on 9/11 I'm sure want to be confirmed of BinLadens death. There will be no peace or rest until it is proven.

[Richard Omolo Midigo]

War on Terrorism not yet warn given the kind and number of attack we see on TVs throughout the world. Unity of all humanity towards eliminating the false jihadists trained by evil minded people like Osama and many others still to be defeated. Bravo American Military Might. Bravo Pakistan Govt.