CNN host Jake Tapper had his lowest-rated month in nearly a decade in May despite a whirlwind publicity tour giving him an onslaught of attention.
Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson’s new book, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” was released in May to much fanfare. The book helped set the recent news cycle with new accusations of the Biden White House hiding the truth about the former president’s fitness for office.
To promote the project, Tapper has embarked on a wide-ranging book tour that landed him on a variety of podcasts, talk shows and cable news. The book has also been promoted relentlessly across CNN, but the spotlight on Tapper has seemingly failed to give him a boost in viewership.
“The Lead with Jake Tapper” averaged 525,000 total viewers from April 28 through May 25, shedding 25% of CNN’s audience in its timeslot from the same period last year in the process.
By comparison, Fox News offerings “The Five” and “Special Report with Bret Baier” averaged 3.3 million viewers from April 28 through May 25, trouncing Tapper.
MSNBC also beat Tapper among total viewers, as programming on the progressive network averaged a little over one million viewers in the timeslot. As a result, Tapper settled for only 11% of the cable news audience share, while MSNBC managed 21% and Fox News commanded 68% during the timeframe.
It was Tapper’s lowest-rated month since August 2015.
“The Lead with Jake Tapper” is also down from last year among the advertiser-coveted demographic of adults aged 25-54. Tapper’s newscast averaged only 95,000 viewers among the critical demo from April 28 through May 25, for a 15% drop.
“The Lead with Jake Tapper” wasn’t the only CNN offering to struggle, as the network had its second-worst month ever in the demo across both total day and primetime during May.
While Tapper’s efforts to promote “Original Sin” haven’t helped viewership, the CNN host has managed to generate headlines by admitting he didn’t report on Biden’s age issues aggressively enough and declaring the cover-up of the former president’s mental decline may be a worse scandal than Watergate.
When reached for comment, CNN noted that Nielsen Media Research only reflects CNN’s audience in the United States, but Tapper’s program airs on other platforms.
“The award-winning program The Lead with Jake Tapper reaches broad global audiences across CNN, CNN International and Max’s streaming platform. No single metric can capture the true reach and impact of a program driving the national conversation,” a CNN spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Ratings information courtesy of Nielsen Media Research.
