CNN is down to around half a million prime time viewers. How does the network survive?
It would be very interesting to see how CNN is funded. At 640 thousand viewers they are getting into the range of C-SPAN. Think about it, that's an average of around 12000 viewers per state and does that include airport viewers?
CNN is funded exactly the same way any commercial broadcast outlet if funded ---
by running commercials. THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE THERE FOR. How can you possibly sit in front of a TV and not notice endless ads for drugs and oversize pickup trucks and ambulance chaser lawyers and fast foods? Commercial broadcasting has been funded this way since literally 1922.
And as already laid out over and over and over and over in this thread, that's what ratings are for --- to count they eyeballs (or in radio the ears) that an advertiser can reach, to analyze who's behind those eyeballs, and thereby determine what that 30 seconds is worth. Obviously the more eyes or ears you reach, the more you can charge for the same amount of time. That's all it is.
Ratings are of interest to advertising, those buying it and those selling it. They have no function for anything else. As also laid out in this thread over and over and over and over, they cannot measure "approval" or "hate" or "veracity" or any other value judgment. They measure ATTENTION, period. The raw cold number of "how many", irrespective of how they got there. In fact if ratings actually were dependent on veracity as some wags seem to suggest here, it would be impossible to sell soap opera, fake wrestling or naked people on an island forced to eat bugs. Couldn't happen.