By now, you’ve probably heard the sad news: CNN’s ratings are in the toilet. Despite a decent daytime bump from the ongoing Trump trials, the network’s prime time numbers last week dropped to a three-decade low of 83,000 viewers among the vaunted 25-54 year-old demographic.
To illustrate just how low those ratings truly are, we put together a list of weird and esoteric things that are more numerous than CNN’s prime time key demo viewers.
1) Competitive Rubik’s Cube solvers registered with the World Cube Association.
The World Cube Association is a volunteer-led 501(c)(3) organization at the heart of the “speedcubing” world. They host a surprising amount of tournaments every year, as well as a biennial world championship. In total, the WCA has over 200,000 registered competitors.
2) Professional psychics working in America.
There are 96,000 of them. Please note that professional is not a synonym for competent. Incidentally, CNN employs hundreds of professional journalists.
3) People with heterochromia in the United States.
There are more than 200,000 people in the U.S. whose left and right eyes are different colors. This means you’re more than twice as likely to know somebody with this rare condition as you are to have a friend or family member between 25 and 54 who watches CNN on weeknights. Now think about how many people you know with heterochromia. Yeah.
4) Participants in a 1988 conga line in Miami.
This one didn’t sound real to us, but the source is none other than the Guinness Book of World Records. On the fateful day of March 13, 1988, a whopping 119,986 people gathered in Miami for some weird record-breaking fun.
5) Once-critically endangered wild Bighorn Sheep living in North America.
The exact figure is the subject of debate, but according to the American Wild Sheep Foundation, the wild bighorn sheep population has climbed to a respectable 85,000 in recent years, from a low of just 25,000 in 1977. That’s a big W for the conservationists, and a pretty wild L for CNN.
6) Attendees of a women’s volleyball match in Nebraska last year.
In August of last year, a regular season NCAA women’s volleyball match between Omaha and Nebraska attracted more than 92,000 spectators. The event broke the world record for highest attendance of any women’s sporting event.
7) Registered bicycle rickshaws in New Delhi.
Less than 20 percent of rickshaw operators in India’s capital actually have legal government permits to operate. Nonetheless, that still leaves us with 99,000 licensed bicycle rickshaws.
8) Tennis balls thrown out per day in the U.S.
To be fair, there are actually hundreds of thousands of tennis balls thrown away every day in America alone. But it’s still a pretty funny statistic.
9) Annual breast reduction patients in America.
Mind you, this figure doesn’t include elective mastectomies. But apparently about 90,000 women every year choose to shrink (but keep) their breasts.
10) Female professional forklift operators.
Just under eight percent of licensed forklift operators in the U.S. are women. But that fraction still represents approximately 127,000 hardhat-clad ladies operating heavy machinery.
11) Subscribers to a youtube channel called “Justin Y” which has never uploaded a single video.
Justin Y currently boasts 784,000 subscribers. Even if only half of those subscribers are between 25 and 54, that still means that watching nothing is several times more appealing than watching CNN during primetime.
