CNN Tops Cable News Coverage of bin Laden's Death
7.76M tune in for Obama's speech
By Lindsay Rubino -- Broadcasting & Cable, 5/2/2011 4:07:19 PM
With the news of Osama bin Laden's death so broadly covered, CNN came out as the dominant cable news source on Sunday night, according to Nielsen fast nationals.
At 10 p.m., in the hour before the official announcement, 2.33 million total viewers tuned into CNN's coverage with Fox News Channel following closely behind with 2.32 million.
At 11 p.m., in the hour of President Obama's speech, CNN jumped ahead with 7.76 million total viewers; Fox News stayed behind at 4.78 million. MSNBC started at 10 p.m. with 1.09 million, and rose to 2.28 during the announcement.
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With limited initial information, network prepped for multiple scenarios
By Andrea Morabito -- Broadcasting & Cable, May 2, 2011
When CNN got word the evening of May 1 that President Obama was going to make a statement, it immediately fired up its Washington-based operations without knowing what the story was. In a May 2 interview with B&C, Sam Feist, CNN VP of Washington programming, who was the executive producer of Sunday's coverage, told us about tracking down CNN talent at a hockey game, how they prepared for several possible stories, and why they sat on the Bin Laden news for 30 minutes before reporting it. An edited transcript of the interview follows.
