Tomorrow the July numbers will be out officially. ICN decided to get a sneak peak out today and spent some time flexing our Excel muscles and practicing data entry.

ICN apologizes for the large graphic but it was the only way to get all the dates in…

The first graph shows the numbers for the four cable networks for weekday Primetime. Most of the networks stayed within their ranges except for FOX which swung violently in a 1,000,000 viewer range. A lot of that probably had to do with Greta Van Susteren’s Aruba coverage. MSNBC broke above HLN twice and both times were breaking news situations (July 7 was the first London bombing and July 19th was the John Roberts to the Supreme Court announcement). This suggests that viewers will tune in to MSNBC in larger numbers but only for breaking news. It will be interesting to see how the Carlson/Cosby program switch alters MSNBC’s graph next month (if at all). Note the uptick at HLN towards the end of the month as it started narrowing the gap to CNN. This was entirely due to Nancy Grace’s dramatic upswing in viewers. Which prompted ICN to do a comparison of Nancy Grace and Paula Zahn Now…

ICN didn’t have individual program numbers for July 4th and 7th (even TVN doesn’t have them available) so that is why the drop to zero on those two days. July 22 CNN Presents pre-empted PZN. What this chart shows is two things. First it shows that Grace’s program is clearly still growing in terms of viewers. You could draw an upward trend line right through her graph. Second, it shows that Paula Zahn Now’s numbers aren’t faltering as a result. The show’s numbers have stayed within a given range and aren’t trending down. What this says to ICN is that Grace’s numbers aren’t hurting CNN. She’s getting her viewers from elsewhere. While symbolically having the child network upstage the parent network is a PR headache, fundamentally it isn’t undermining the parent network.

Accordingly ICN will now stop framing this dynamic between CNN and HLN at 8 pm in “Grace vs. Zahn” terms because there is no data to suggest that one is hurting the other and there in fact is no contest, except symbolically. Zahn’s show has held its own despite Grace’s resurgance so it doesn’t make any sense to ICN to suggest that Zahn’s show is in trouble because Grace’s show is excelling. Maybe Time Warner might want to move Grace to CNN at some point but it won’t be because Zahn is losing viewers to Grace. Because she isn’t. Whether Zahn’s numbers are acceptable is another issue entirely and one that only CNN can answer.