Brian Stelter’s CNN show hits yearly low, fails to crack million-viewer plateau for second straight week

CNN’s "Reliable Sources" with far-left host Brian Stelter had its lowest-rated show of the year on Sunday, failing to crack the one-million viewer plateau for the second-straight week.

Stelter’s program, which is billed as a media program but has morphed into a weekly partisan attack on conservative news organizations, averaged only 936,000 on March 21. The total was its smallest audience of the year.

The most recent episode of "Reliable Sources" dropped a staggering 65 percent of its viewers since its Jan. 10 edition that averaged 2.7 million viewers, as viewers tuned in for the latest on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

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NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck wrote that Stelter’s ratings collapse shows "just how far CNN has fallen as they continue to struggle with symptoms of Trump withdrawal" and struggle for an identity.  

"For Stelter, March 21 number was his lowest since September 27, 2020 when 891,000 poor souls tuned in to hear Stelter demand the co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates ruthlessly pile-drive President Trump into the ground with help from Trump hater and Lincoln Project helper Molly Jong-Fast and showboater Brian Karem," Houck wrote.

"Reliable Sources" also had its second-worst performance of the year among the key news demographic of adults age 25-54, averaging only 211,000 viewers among the group most coveted by advertisers.

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Perhaps viewers have realized that Stelter doesn’t cover the majority of mainstream media scandals and gaffes, as he avoided the Washington Post's major correction to its bombshell January report about a phone call between then-President Donald Trump and Georgia elections investigator Frances Watson. 

The major correction was the type of story most media programs would spend significant time on, but "Reliable Sources" passed altogether.

In the past few months, Stelter’s media-centric show has also avoided a major MSNBC leadership shakeup, CNN colleague Jeffrey Toobin's firing from The New Yorker following his Zoom call masturbation scandal,  the ousting of MSNBC contributor Jon Meacham after it was revealed that he was moonlighting as a speechwriter for the Biden campaign, the ongoing scandals plaguing 2020 media darlings The Lincoln Project, and the bombshell developments in New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's nursing home scandal. 

Back in October, Stelter skipped Glenn Greenwald's dramatic exit from The Intercept after the founding editor accused his colleagues of censoring his story critical of Joe Biden and ignored Twitter caving in its standoff with The New York Post over its reporting of the Hunter Biden story.

Stelter also ignored the controversy surrounding presidential debate moderator and C-SPAN host Steve Scully, who alleged that his Twitter account was hacked after it appeared that he was reaching out to Trump foe Anthony Scaramucci. Stelter only acknowledged the controversy after Scully admitted that he lied about the hack. 

In 2019, Stelter completely avoided the revelation that ABC News had spiked an investigation into convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

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Stelter has also largely ignored advice from a departing longtime CNN executive to have more conservatives and dissenting voices on his show. 

"I think you need to strive to have more voices on the show from right of center," CNN's former vice president of standards and practices Rick Davis advised Stelter on the show.

Fox News’ "Media Buzz," which is the direct 11 a.m. ET competition for Stelter’s struggling CNN program, averaged 1.4 million viewers on March 21.

All data courtesy of Nielsen Media Research.

Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.