The figures for last week were truly bad, deeply bad — the worst for the news network in 20 years. CNN averaged just 395,000 viewers in prime time for the week of May 14, a figure lower than any week of prime-time programming on the network since September 1991. CNN has seen its competitive position erode for several years without instituting significant changes in its overall approach. The network’s management has kept to its course of emphasizing news coverage and not the views of its prime-time personalities.
"We interrupt this commercial break for a short segment of news"
If they didn't run a commercial break every "3 minutes" (for 8 commercials it seems) maybe people would stay with it...plus the same Gold/AARP/Reverse Mortgage spots etc over and over