Campbell Brown: The Numbers Behind the Hype

CNN's Campbell Brown came into her own as a TV news personality last fall, garnering mention, alongside Katie Couric and Rachel Maddow, as one of (in the words of Salon's Rebecca Traister) "several female newscasters to have kicked ass, taken names and otherwise owned the coverage of the 2008 election." But are her ratings as real as her buzz?

Brown's show, Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull, debuted a year ago today, although it was several weeks before she was appearing on a nightly basis and several months before it found a name. No Bias was CNN's No. 1 show in total viewers last month, and it's one of the few prime time cable news shows to show ratings growth after the election. (It's up 35 percent in the key demographic of adults 25 to 54; The O'Reilly Factor, which airs opposite No Bias on Fox News, is also up marginally over the same period.)

But slicing the numbers in a different way makes No Bias look more like a continuation of CNN's long-running problem in the 8 o'clock hour, where the network competes not only with O'Reilly but also with Keith Olbermann, arguably the second-biggest personality in cable news, and one who, like O'Reilly, has a built-in audience of ideological dittoheads. For the month of February to date (which for Nielsen's purposes actually began Jan. 26), No Bias is running not only behind The O'Reilly Factor and Countdown in its hour, but also behind Headline News's Nancy Grace, who's been surging in the ratings thanks to her coverage of Caylee Anthony. And while those other shows are all up year-over-year, No Bias drew 8 percent fewer total viewers and 20 percent fewer demo viewers than the network did a year ago. ("They should call it No Bias, No Bull, No Ratings," snipes a cable competitor -- you can probably guess which one.)

Of course, that year-before period includes the Feb. 5 "Super Tuesday" primary day that was expected to decide the Democratic race. CNN prefers to date the comparison for No Bias to March 10, when Brown started hosting the show on a daily basis. With that as the starting point, No Bias is up about 70 percent in both total and demo viewers from its inception.