'NYO': America Loves Anderson, But Also Doesn't
As you know, we've recently discovered some mixed emotions about our beloved Anderson. Now the Observer's TV queen, Rebecca Dana, reports that it seems the rest of the world has conflicted feelings on him, too. How so? Well, he's indisputably a star — VF coverboy, bestselling author, new 60 Minutes correspondent, Details columnist, Yale commencement speaker. But there's a catch: Turns out barely anyone is actually watching his TV show. Some numbers, as accumulated by Dana, after the jump.
On average, only some 630,000 viewers a night tune in to Anderson Cooper 360, to watch Anderson Cooper do his professional duties....
Many nights, Mr. Cooper doesn't even do as well as his predecessor Aaron Brown, the ice to his fire, the old-fashioned, bespectacled anchor who was booted in 2005 to make room for Mr. Cooper....
[I]n June, Mr. Cooper has occasionally been outperformed by his own substitute host, John Roberts, the salt-and-pepper CNN national correspondent who was dumped by CBS News this year. He loses 20 to 40 percent of his lead-in from Larry King Live.
And he is routinely trounced by his head-to-head Fox competitors, Greta van Susteren and a rebroadcast of Bill O'Reilly.
And yet somehow Greta hasn't ended up on the cover of Vanity Fair. Can't imagine why.
