Anderson Cooper won the best hour on Friday, no doubt to CNN’s coverage of the plane crash in Ukraine. Bill Maher won the day overall, based upon his discussion of the situation in Gaza. What’s interesting is that the plane crash is (at this point) mostly a non-partisan, fact based issue, the Gaza discussion is very politically charged. And so the middle-ground network, CNN, dominates the plane crash conversation while partisan shows (like Bill Maher’s) dominate the conversation about Gaza.
Cable News Twitter Ratings for July 17, 2014: CNN and Ukraine
The ratings for Thursday are probably somewhat inaccurate owing to the unscheduled coverage of the MH17 crash. The trending topics report showed that CNN dominated the conversation overall, as one might expect. So take these numbers with a grain of salt: the Kelly file had the best hour while the Colbert Report had the best day overall.
Trending Topics in Cable News for Thursday, July 17, 2014 — MH17 with Gaza distant second
Cable News Trending Topics for 2014-07-17
The conversation on cable news Twitter was dominated by the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 over eastern Ukraine. Talk about Gaza was a distant second.
Trending Topics in Cable News for Wednesday, July 16, 2014 — Gaza and the US Border
Cable News Trending Topics for 2014-07-16
CNN had one of its strong days where its mentions, unique mentions, and reach just far exceed what anyone else does. It shows the latent, and often untapped, power of the network.
In terms of trending hashtags, #flipadistrict and #donothingdave were on the top of the list, all part of the Twitter buzz surrounding Bill Maher’s Flip-a-district project. In terms of discussion, the events in Gaza and on the US border both were trending highly.
Top Shows for the day:
| Category | Mentions | Show |
| Most Mentions During Hour | 2465 | Fox News: The Kelly File |
| Most Mentions During Day | 8148 | Fox News: Hannity |
Overall ratings by network
| Network | Tweet Count | Unique Tweeters | Reach | Male | Female |
| CNN | 45105 | 32184 | 356149853 | 58 % | 42 % |
| Fox News | 38724 | 17211 | 170025564 | 61 % | 39 % |
| MSNBC | 23764 | 10495 | 105528500 | 53 % | 47 % |
| HBO | 17743 | 1246 | 18929898 | 46 % | 54 % |
| Comedy Central | 11684 | 9981 | 76550198 | 63 % | 37 % |
| Al Jazeera | 2030 | 1535 | 9132168 | 58 % | 42 % |
| HLN | 1650 | 937 | 6899593 | 47 % | 53 % |
Most popular hastags
| Hashtag | Count |
| #flipadistrict | 17252 |
| #donothingdave | 15573 |
| #tntweeters | 14125 |
| #wa8 | 10503 |
| #gaza | 6629 |
| #tcot | 5593 |
| #lnyhbt | 4174 |
| #kellyfile | 2966 |
| #blackfish | 2879 |
| #pjnet | 2285 |
Tag Cloud across all shows
| #14a #2a #ac360 #america #benghazi #blackfish #bordercrisis #bringbackourmarine #c2gthr #captivitykills #cavuto #ccot #cir #cnn #congress #crossfire #dailyshow #defundhamas #dickcheney #donothingdave #drakesingforjasmin #edshow #emptythetanks #flipadistrict #foxnews #freearturo #gaza #gazaunderattack #gop #gopout #gosnell #hamas #hannity #hardball #hillaryclinton #iamjada #immigration #inners #iran #irantalks #irantalksvienna #irs #israel #kellyfile #lastword #latino #libcrib #lnyhbt #maddow #marineheldinmexico #midtermelection #morningjoe #msnbc #newday #news #nra #obama #obamacare #ocra #oreillyfactor #outnumbered #p2 #pdmfnb #pjnet #prolife #realtime #redeye #rednationrising #reiders #retirereichert #scotus #seaworld #shutdown #shuttaijidown #sisterpatriots #standwith #superpod3 #takeoffjustlogo #tcot #tdsbreakingnews #teamedshow #teaparty #texas #tgdn #thefive #thelead #thor #tlot #tntweeters #tweet4taiji #ukraine #uniteblue #uniteright #usa #veteran #wa08 #wa8 #waar #wiunion #wwhl |
Word Cloud across all shows
| 4congress 4real adios against america american arrested back beach bear best border bye came child children clowns co colbert come congress devastating ever fact first forget gaza getting gone good goodbye gop government govt great hamas happened help house htt illegal israel jon just kids know last like live love make makes man maybe must need needs never new news now obama one people photo power president put really reichert report representation retire right road said say says see show shut small speaks stewart sun support think time tonight us use vote vote4 walked want watch way will work world |
Cable News Twitter Ratings for Wednesday, July 16, 2014 — FFTW – Fox for the win
Another win for The Kelly File and Hannity — this is becoming the new normal in cable news Twitter.
Some other observations: while Rachel Maddow was off last night and that affected her engagement, even when she’s in the chair she almost always loses to Megyn Kelly in their time slot. Unfortunately, the show almost never promotes its social media presence on air, which not doubt is a large factor in its poor engagement. It is ironic that Fox News is turning into a much more social media savvy organization while MSNBC’s top show seems so inept.