I’ve never watched an episode of “Reliable Sources” in my life, content only to watch the relevant clips posted on Twitter in order to get a good look at the nakedly biased lunacy that Brian Stelter was up to that day, but even I was tempted to tune in to watch his last Sunday episode just to see what he would do or say. Needless to say, I didn’t, and instead went and did something that was a better use of my time, which was anything else.
Still, a lot of people weren’t able to resist the pull and tuned in to watch Stelter go down with his ship. In fact, more people tuned into “Reliable Sources” in its last episode than its average viewership. According to Variety, Stelter’s last Sunday outing on CNN pulled in quite a large amount of eyes:
According to Nielsen, the final broadcast, anchored by host Brian Stelter, generated an average of 769,000 viewers overall, as well as 105,000 viewers between the ages of 25 and 54, the demographic most coveted by advertisers in news programming. “Reliable Sources” has more viewers overall than the 8 p.m. hour of Sunday’s “Newsroom,” which lured an average of 521,000 viewers and 78,000 in the advertisers demo. A “CNN Special Report” at 9 p.m. won an average of 722,000 and 97,000 in the advertiser demo, while the series of W. Kamau Bell’s “United Shades of America” won an average of 694,000 viewers and 120,000 in the ad demo.
It was an impressive enough number for CNN, even overcoming MSNBC in that time slot, but despite CNN airing a sinking ship with its captain going down with it, Stelter still couldn’t beat Fox News’s “MediaBuzz” which pulled in 1.39 million viewers with 220,000 between 25 and 54, the key demographic.
These are big numbers for CNN. According to The Wrap, last June “Reliable Sources” pulled in an average of 585,000 viewers, with only 79,000 of those being in the key demo.
As Nick Arama noted about Stelter’s last episode, it was full of the anti-conservative ridiculousness you’d expect from Stelter who’s so wrapped in leftism that he can’t watch a Republican sneeze without him labeling it a danger to our “democracy.” He even went so far as to tell everyone that the “far-right” in America makes doing his job dangerous, just like in North Korea or Russia. It was an absolutely delusional moment, even for Stelter:
“CNN’s Brian Stelter decries outside criticism of journalism as a “poisonous cloud” that’s spread throughout the country and around the world. He adds he’s “proud” to have worked at a network when they knew they had to fight and attack Trump,” Houck explained.
So, it’s wrong to criticize journalism? Wasn’t that what Stelter’s show was supposed to be about? Of course, that’s why he’s gone because his show wasn’t that; it devolved into a constant attack on Fox News and Trump. But it was sort of hilarious as he talked about why the media didn’t cover the important stories that should be covered. Then he and Carl Bernstein immediately went back to the narrative about “democracy” being in danger from authoritarianism (translation: to them, that means Trump).
There’s no question that Stelter had his loyal viewers who really did like him, but Stelter wasn’t fired for being too popular. All the clues point to the fact that Stelter was a divisive toady for the Democrat Party and every episode he did was either ignored or, if he managed to say something crazy enough, it would get passed around the internet to be derided or laughed at.
I’m willing to bet that more people than ever didn’t tune in to bid a fond farewell to “Reliable Sources” and its host. I’m willing to bet quite a few people tuned in to watch the train finally derail and crash with more than a few people tuning in to see if they would win the bet on whether or not there’d be tears.
Either way, good riddance to bad rubbish.