MSNBC’s Friday prime time special programming, the premiere of the documentary Meeting David Wilson and the town meeting which followed, performed well for the network. The documentary aired from 9-10:30pmET, and the Brian Williams-led discussion from Howard University aired from 10:30-MidnightET.
The 10pmET hour (the end of the special and beginning of the town meeting) gave MSNBC a second place finish, behind FNC, in the A25-54 demo. The final hour of the discussion at 11pmET finished first in the demo, with 341,000 viewers (compared to 202,000 for FNC and 160,000 for CNN).
Sunday’s CNN Compassion Forum handily defeated the competition in both the A25-54 demo and in Total Viewers. It was the highest-rated program in cable news for the weekend.
The Campbell Brown and Jon Meacham-moderated forum garnered 1,880,000 million viewers. In second-place at 8pmET was similar programming on FNC, with the Pope Benedict special, Mission to America, totaling 690,000.
The strong ratings from the Forum, as well as from the John King-anchored Route 2008 which followed it, helped CNN to wins in the primetime and total day demo and primetime Total Viewers.