CNN’s lame Jill Biden primetime special was a big, fat flop

First Lady Jill Biden did a primetime special for CNN on Monday and pretty much no one noticed as she discussed whether the president would run again, age competency tests, Africa’s impending famine, the classified document scandal, and her life in general.

The “CNN Primetime: Jill Biden Abroad” special flopped big time as the leftist network continues to spiral into a black hole of obscurity. CNN also wrote a piece on the first lady to back up the interview.

CNN has been unable to fill its primetime slot with a permanent 9 pm ET host for over a year after giving anchor Chris Cuomo the boot in late 2021. Its ratings definitely reflect that fact. Jake Tapper and others have tried to fill the void but the network’s numbers have cratered into the netherworld and don’t seem to be coming back.

During that primetime slot, CNN desperately ran the Jill Biden special hoping for a jump in ratings. They were destined to be disappointed and potentially horrified as the ratings got even worse.

CNN White House correspondent Arlette Saenz wore a permanent forced smile while interviewing the first lady. But despite the big name, CNN shed a whopping 43% of CNN’s average viewership, according to Fox News.

“Jill Biden Abroad” averaged a paltry 368,000 total viewers compared to 2.7 million for Fox News’s “Hannity” and 2.3 million for MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.” Both of those shows aired in the same time slot as the interview. It was CNN’s worst weekday performance since June 17, 2022, with the notable exceptions of Christmas Eve, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Fox News reported, “TBS’ midday repeats of ‘Friends,’ Investigation Discovery’s ‘Murder Comes Home,’ ‘Andy Griffith Show’ and ‘Gunsmoke’ reruns on TV Land Classic, Hallmark’s decades-old airings of ‘The Golden Girls’ and Lifetime’s ‘Castle’ were among Monday’s basic cable offerings to outdraw CNN’s 9 pm ET program.”

“CNN’s ‘Jill Biden Abroad’ didn’t perform much better among the advertiser-coveted demographic of adults age 25-54, averaging only 84,000 viewers among the key category to lose 42% of the network’s 2023 year-to-date average 9 pm viewership. On the same evening, ‘Hannity’ averaged 322,000 demo viewers, and ‘Maddow’ managed 219,000,” the conservative media outlet added.

February was a catastrophic month for CNN, ending with historically low viewership. The month was stuffed with news but the network had its smallest audience for that demo since 2012. It was CNN’s worst numbers in the category since 2013.

CNN has tried everything it can think of to fire up that time slot. The network has run a number of specials and tried out both Anderson Cooper and Jim Acosta. Nothing has worked to save the failing ratings and many believe the network is on deathwatch unless something miraculous happens.

As for the first lady’s special, few even heard of it and a full version of the appearance does not even seem to be on YouTube. Clips can be found on Twitter, but it’s almost as if the sit-down was an afterthought and not a serious one at that.

Jill Biden did make a point of professing her love for her beleaguered stepson Hunter Biden during the interview.

“I love Hunter and I’ll support him in any way I can and that’s how I look at things,” the first lady said when asked about her stepson being targeted by Republicans amid a wave of investigations.

“Has the wave of investigations into him, does that factor into any of the thinking heading into 2024?” Saenz asked.

Biden curtly replied, “No.”

She would not answer if President Biden is running in 2024 for the presidency. Instead, she said it was up to him and his family would support him no matter what he decides.

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