How Can Anderson Cooper Get His Ratings Up?

Anderson Cooper's CNN show AC360 used to be required TV viewing for me—a chance to spend an hour gazing into the silver fox's gorgeous blue eyes while listening to him pose intelligent, challenging questions to the newsmakers of the day. But I have to admit that I haven't tuned into the show regularly now for months, and I'm not the only one who has tuned out.

The Los Angeles Times reports that AC360 has lost one-third of its audience since the start of 2009, and the show's 10-11 p.m. EST live broadcast averaged less than 933,000 viewers a night in May, marking the first time that the show has garnered less than 1 million viewers since last August. The Friday, May 8 edition of AC360 was the least-watched installment of the show so far this year, drawing only 622,000 viewers.

It's not like CNN has stopped promoting the show. In fact, CNN continues to market Anderson as the face of the news network with those promos in which Anderson is touted as a serious newsman as well as a pin-up who looks great in a tight t-shirt.

I love the guy, but I have to admit that even as a fan, I think the network goes a bit far with the deification of Anderson. Could that be hurting his ratings? Is he the victim of a backlash?

Or maybe he is suffering such a dramatic fall-off because the excitement of the presidential election is now over and done with?

Perhaps some viewers are turned off by AC360's uneven tone? One minute Anderson is conducting a serious interview, the next he's laughing over some wacky Japanese video clip with his sidekick Erica Hill.

I have one friend who takes issue with Anderson not being out and argues that it seriously takes away from his credibility as a journalist. His decision not to come out publicly may rankle members of the gay community, but I don't think your average viewer has stopped watching AC360 because Anderson refuses to talk about his personal life.

Whatever the cause of AC360's precipitous slip in viewership, Anderson needs to stop bleeding viewers and pump up the ratings.

I would go back to watching AC360 every night if Kathy Griffin became a special correspondent for the show.

Or maybe Anderson could dump the serious newsman act entirely and go full throttle with beefcake journalism. It is probably too much to ask him to do his show shirtless, but when he goes on location and wears one of those form-fitting t-shirts (Anderson has really bulked up over the last few years), I can't turn away from the television. So, Anderson, how about ditching the suit and going with the clingy t-shirt even in the studio? I'm sure the girls would like it, too.

What do you think? Why is Anderson losing his audience, and what can he do to get them back?

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