CNN’s Brian Stelter draws smallest audience of 2021 as ‘Reliable Sources’ gets crushed by ‘MediaBuzz’

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Media top headlines June 15

The New York Times admitting The Babylon Bee is satire, not ‘misinformation’ in a correction, the media ignoring Biden’s attack on GOP while abroad, despite criticizing Trump for violating political norm and ABC’s Terry Moran getting panned for suggesting GOP would end the filibuster ‘in a heartbeat’ round out today’s top media headlines

CNN’s "Reliable Sources" with Brian Stelter has failed to attract one million viewers for 11-straight weeks and averaged only 752,000 on Sunday for its smallest audience of 2021. 

Stelter, who claims to cover the media industry but often ignores stories that would tarnish the reputation of a fellow liberal, lost five percent of his viewers compared to the previous week. The struggling show has now finished with less than 800,000 viewers on three different occasions in 2021. 

CNN’s "Reliable Sources" with Brian Stelter has failed to attract one million viewers for 11-straight weeks. (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images) (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)

Fox News’ "MediaBuzz," which is Stelter’s direct timeslot competition, averaged 1.1 million viewers to beat the struggling CNN show by a whopping 41 percent. Fox News aired 12 different programs on Sunday alone that attracted a larger audience than "Reliable Sources." 

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While "Reliable Sources" is billed as a media program, Stelter’s tiny audience didn’t get a chance to hear about the most buzzed-about segment of the week when he didn’t cover Jeffrey Toobin’s awkward return to CNN after he was caught masturbating on a Zoom call with colleagues from his other gig. 

Stelter had previously reported that some CNN hosts and anchors "expressed a desire to have Toobin back," but he didn’t name names. Viewers who tuned in to see if Stelter would elaborate on air were left disappointed when he never even uttered Toobin’s name during the program. 

"Reliable Sources" has been hitting embarrassing new lows in various ratings measurables on a regular basis in recent weeks as the program struggles to find relevancy during the Biden era. Stelter spent much of the previous few years criticizing former President Trump at every turn but hasn’t found a formula to attract an audience since Biden was sworn in. 

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"Reliable Sources" has now failed to attract even 200,000 viewers among the crucial demographic of adults age 25-54 for 10-straight weeks. Sunday’s episode was seen by only 129,000 viewers among the key demo, which was the show’s third-worst performance of the year in the category most important to advertisers. "MediaBuzz" averaged 185,000 demo viewers to beat "Reliable Sources" by 43 percent. 

The dismal turnout for Sunday’s episode of CNN's media show was even worse than the small audience of 791,000 viewers who tuned in for Stelter’s chummy interview with White House press secretary Jen Psaki that was widely panned earlier this month. 

Last week, Stelter was mocked by callers who referred to the media pundit as a "minister of misinformation" during an appearance on C-SPAN’s "Washington Journal."

"Mr. Stelter is the biggest minister of misinformation I have ever heard and I’m a news junkie," a caller identified as Kevin from Indiana told the liberal CNN host. 

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A separate caller identified as Gordon in Kansas asked Stelter, who recently referred to himself as a "content machine," to "admit he and his network are a bunch of liars about Donald Trump."