CNBC To Forego Daytime Nielsen Ratings -- January 8, 2015

Wow, I missed a lot of stories, links while traveling. Here's another one, sent by a reader. The reader knows that I am not exactly a fan of CNBC. We don't get cable television, so I almost never seen CNBC any more. Here's the New York Times story:

CNBC announced Tuesday that it was abandoning Nielsen ratings for its daytime programming in favor of a research firm that will survey financial advisers and investment professionals to gauge the effectiveness of ad campaigns on the business news network.

The network said its new partner, Cogent Reports, would measure the viewing of people who watched its Business Day programming outside of their homes — at the office or the gym, for instance — viewing that Nielsen did not measure. Cogent Reports’ research will focus on CNBC’s target audience of business professionals and affluent investors, who are more likely to pay attention to financial news.

Right, wrong, or indifferent, this is what really surprised me. Look at the numbers. Look at how very, very few people actually watch CNBC:

According to Nielsen data, CNBC drew an average of 137,000 total daytime viewers in 2014, up 5.4 percent from an average of 130,000 in 2013.

Oprah, at her peak, drew 12 to 13 million viewers. David Letterman is down to about 2 million viewers per show. Rachel Maddow has about a million viewers. CNBC -- about the only cable business news show out there -- minimal competition -- minimal alternatives -- and it gets about 200,000 viewers?