47.
Sorry truth hurts.
On MSNBC, meanwhile, Lawrence O'Donnell has lost 100,000 viewers from the numbers Mr. Olbermann posted last September, with 185,000 viewers in the 25-to-54 age group, a drop of 35 percent. (Bill O'Reilly on Fox, as always, dwarfs his competitors with about three times as many viewers, 611,000.)
More ominously, the falloff for Mr. O'Donnell seems to be affecting MSNBC's biggest name, Rachel Maddow. Her audience dropped 15 percent this year, to 245,000 from 289,000. She still beats Piers Morgan on CNN in the 9 p.m. hour, but his show has improved 18 percent over Larry King's ratings last year, with 193,000 viewers to Mr. King's 164,000.
MSNBC executives endured a contentious parting with Mr. Olbermann last January. Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, had a succinct answer to the question of whether the network is feeling the impact of Mr. Olbermann's departure: "No."
He added, "I'm confident that we will increase our ratings as politics become the dominant story over the next year."
Mr. Olbermann is now on the air head-to-head against Mr. O'Donnell. The channel he appears on, Current TV, is not in the league of either CNN or MSNBC in terms of national profile, and his audience totals do not approach any of the other 8 p.m. competitors.
Mr. Olbermann averaged just over 50,000 viewers in the 25-to-54 measure in September, or less than 20 percent of what he attracted on MSNBC. Still, many of those 50,000 may have previously been viewers of MSNBC -- and Mr. O'Donnell was 30,000 viewers behind Mr. Cooper in September.
Some industry analysts said the loss of viewers for MSNBC may have to do with strategic changes the network made in recent years.
"MSNBC may be rediscovering the downside of partisan news," said Chris Daly, a professor of journalism at Boston University. "That is, the size of your audience is essentially cajoled by the size of the electorate that already agrees with you."
www.nytimes.com
Until now, media inquiries about the show had been directed to Clear Channel's talk show syndication subsidiary, Premiere Radio Networks.
"Rush is Rush and radio is radio," Pittman said.
He added that attempts by rival radio company Cumulus Media to sell a show hosted by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in Limbaugh's time slot validated Limbaugh's status as the talk-show leader. "It basically says Rush is the king," he said. "Rush is certainly the leader, and we're delighted to have him." Premiere has said that "The Rush Limbaugh Show" is heard on nearly 600 stations by up to 20 million people each week.
Read more: www.politico.com
Hell The bob and top show spanks MSNBC in the ratings.
