“New Day,” the CNN morning show Jeff Zucker launched as his top priority as the new head of the network, is a resounding dud seven months after its debut.
Nielsen ratings show “New Day” — hosted by Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan and Michaela Pereira — pulled an average of 389,000 viewers in its first full month in July, but declined steadily to just 255,000 viewers by December.
On Monday, “New Day” hit rock bottom in the 7-8 a.m. hour with 142,000 total viewers — only 21,000 of them in the 25-to-54-year-old demographic important to advertisers. Both numbers are all-time lows.
“It’s too much like everything else,” Marc Berman of TV Media Insights told me. “It’s not giving the viewers anything they aren’t getting elsewhere.”
Zucker had great success running the “Today” show. “He’s very experienced with morning. That’s his comfort zone,” Berman said. “But, as he has learned, it’s not easy.”
He assembled three attractive hosts who seem to like each other and have chemistry.
“They are talented broadcasters. The problem is, it’s the same old formula,” said a network exec, echoing Berman’s sentiment.
The poor ratings prove that Soledad O’Brien, the previous CNN morning anchor, wasn’t the problem, either.
A CNN spokeswoman told me, “The facts are, ‘New Day’ is the only cable morning show to show growth last year, and has cut the gap by more than half with [MSNBC’s] ‘Morning Joe.’ ”
Zucker is no longer talking about morning programming. Now he tells reporters he’s going to revamp prime time. But rival TV execs aren’t worried. One scoffed, “Has he had one success except a documentary about whales?”