Early ‘Imus’ Wins

By Chris Ariens 

About a year ago at this time we were talking about the ratings for the TV edition of “Imus in the Morning” and whether the FBN show would be around much longer. Well, a year later it is, and we have some new ratings data to share.

“Imus in the Morning,” which is about three years into its run, edged the first hour of its chief rival CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in Total Viewers in February. The 6amET hour of Imus averaged 86,000 viewers to “Squawk’s” 83,000. Year-over-year, Imus is up +72% in that hour. Imus is still pretty much getting crushed in younger viewers, averaging 8,000 viewers, while “Squawk Box” averaged 39,000 for the month.

In the 7am hour, “Imus” and “Squawk” both add viewers, but in the case of CNBC the numbers nearly doubled to 162,000 while Imus gained 20K viewers, averaging 106,000.

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And one more victory lap (or stroll) Imus can take: Nielsen numbers indicate his show on Monday topped CNN’s “Early Start.” Imus averaged 122K and “Early Start” drew 117K. CNN still had him beat in the demo 35K vs. 20K.

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