The lead to the story about the ratings for “The Lead” is this: New CNN Show Leads from Behind.
“The Lead with Jake Tapper” drew 400,000 total viewers and 87,000 in the A25-54 demo Monday — its debut episode. The show was down in total viewers from last Monday’s 4pm hour (427,000) but up in the demo (54,000). Tapper also had split results from his 3pm lead-in: “The Lead” added total viewers (400K vs. 290K), but lost demo viewers (87K vs. 98K).
The show came in fourth place behind FNC (1.102M / 172K), HLN (779K / 211K) and MSNBC (479K / 100K).
Politico’s Patrick Gavin was at the post premiere party during which new CNN president Jeff Zucker called Tapper, the “face of the new CNN.”
“I can tell you from the position that I was in, the prospect of Jake Tapper being the face of the new CNN had me more excited than anything, and I can tell you after today, I know it was absolutely the right thing. I couldn’t be prouder. I couldn’t hope for more than for Jake and his team to take CNN into our next place, into our next century. This is the start of an incredible new era.”