CNN TAKES RATINGS LEADING IN HOUSTON COVERAGE

Affirming CNN’s reputation as the place to go for late-breaking news, especially when that news is non-political in nature, Nielsen said on Monday that the cable news network ‘s wall-to-wall coverage of the death of Whitney Houston attracted an average of 2.17 million viewers from 8:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, peaking at 9:00 p.m. with 3.15 million viewers. Fox News, the usual cable news winner, was a distant second with 1.34 million. while challenger MSNBC wound up with just 652,000. Among the key demo group of 25-54 year-old viewers, CNN’s dominance was even greater, as it averaged 1.06 million to Fox News’s 377,000 and MSNBC’s 317,000.