Does Anderson Cooper Exist?
I've never quite understood the media obsession with Anderson Cooper. He's the only person
Gawker seems to like, he writes a column for Details, he got a kajillion-dollar book deal from HarperCollins, and he's on
the cover of Vanity Fair this month. Why?
Sure, he's an intelligent, nice-looking man with an interesting family history. (Famous mom, brother committed suicide, etc.) He's gay, so a lot of media folks like him for that. And his white hair is distinctive. But the future of the anchorperson, as CNN head honcho Jonathan Klein once called him? I don't think so. I preferred the man who was ousted for Cooper, Aaron Brown, who was curmudgeonly and arrogant (apparently) but contrarian and serious too.
Now comes news that, a year after Cooper took Brown's place, to much hullabaloo and media adoration,
Cooper's ratings are in freefall...not that they ever equaled Brown's in the first place.
From Variety....
CNN sacked Brown believing Cooper could draw a bigger, younger aud at 10 p.m. But that hasn't happened. And the VF cover hit just as April ratings showed Coop down 36% in the 25-54 demo, the younger aud he was supposed to attract.
Brown averaged 307,000 young viewers a night last year. This April, Cooper averaged 198,000. In total viewers, Cooper averaged 710,000 compared to 907,000 for Brown last year.
Ouch.
The moral of the story? The New York media really is out of touch with the rest of the country. And likes Anderson Cooper for reasons that have nothing to do with whether he's good on TV.
It's also possible that younger viewers just aren't going to watch CNN, unless maybe you put Lindsay Lohan behind the anchor's desk.
I'll bet that Vanity Fair cover is a bomb.....
