Last week, the liberal co-host of Fox News’ The Five, Bob Beckel, was a little perturbed that MSNBC had copied his show’s format by commenting that The Cycle “didn’t have a prayer.”
If early ratings are any indication, Beckel may be right.
The Cycle, which took the 3 p.m. time slot while Martin Bashir’s program moved to the 4 p.m. slot, lost one percent of the total audience, but of the key A25-54 demographic it lost a whopping 36%, as compared to Bashir. That equates to just 77,000 viewers in the demo, which based on the average age of The Cycle’s hosts, should be their bread and butter.
The year-over-year comparisons aren’t much better, with The Cycle down 5% in total viewers and 16% in the demo.
If MSNBC is hoping that by copying The Five’s format it can also match its ratings, it has a long way to go. So far in July The Five has averaged 1.83 million total viewers and 405,000 in the demo.
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