BLACKFISH A WHALE OF SUCCESS FOR CNN

Blackfish, a two-hour documentary that essentially indicts the sea-park industry that captures killer whales and turns them into performers, captured huge ratings when it was broadcast by CNN Thursday night. Bill Carter, who covers television for the New York Times, noted on Saturday that the documentary not only was No. 1 among the 25-54 age group that news networks promote to advertisers but also among viewers 18-49, the money class for TV as a whole. Especially striking, Carter wrote, “was how much better the documentary fared as the audience got younger — the opposite of the normal pattern for news.” Among the 25-24 demo CNN averaged 472,000 viewers, while Fox News drew 311,000 and MSNBC 235,000 between 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. But among the 18-49 demo, the number grew to 688,000 for CNN, 216,000 for Fox News and 173,000 for MSNBC. Among total adults, the older-skewing Fox News led with 1.9 million viewers, followed by CNN with 1.4 million and MSNBC with 867,000.