Cable News Ratings: CNN Leads Coverage of Whitney Houston Funeral

Coverage averaged nearly nine million viewers across cable news

By Andrea Morabito -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/22/2012 12:09:23 PM

Most viewers tuning to coverage of Whitney Houston's funeral on Saturday afternoon watched it on CNN, as the cable news channel averaged 5 million total viewers from 12:15-3:45 p.m.

In comparison, Fox News and CNN sister net HLN were neck-and-neck for second place with 1.4 million viewers while 709,000 watched on MSNBC. In the news-targeted adults 25-54 demo, CNN also led with 2.2 million viewers to HLN's 448,000, FNC's 405,000 and MSNBC's 251,000.

Total viewership peaked from the 1-2 p.m. hour on the cable news networks, when CNN drew 5.25 million viewers, Fox News had 1.52 million viewers,HLN saw 1.48 million viewers and MSNBC attracted 813,000 viewers.

Ratings for E! and BET, which also aired funeral coverage, have not yet been released.