Anna Nicole Coverage Sweetens the Ratings Pot

"I know a lot of people are complaining about that," Blitzer said. "But a lot of people are also watching."

He said a mouthful.

Last Thursday, when Blitzer was standing in front of his Big Board of Moving Pictures, shepherding CNN's Anna Nicole coverage on "The Situation Room," he had an average audience of 1.7 million viewers -- nearly tripling his audience in the same hour the day before and beating Fox News Channel in the hour. This is a good place to mention that Too Good to Cover Pop Culture Cafferty, who appears on Blitzer's program, also got to enjoy those million or so extra viewers that day.

In that same hour, FNC's Neil Cavuto tried gamely to cover the Anna Nicole story while standing at the golf course in Pebble Beach, Calif., site of the annual Pro-Am tourney, where he was slated to interview Oscar nominee Clint Eastwood:

"I want to touch on this with you, then I'm going to leave it because there are far more urgent issues for you," Cavuto told Eastwood on the links.

"But Anna Nicole has died. Sort of a whimsical character now to the press," Cavuto continued. "Here-again-gone-again celebrity. You have survived so many careers that have gone up and down -- how do you feel?"

"You're trying to make me feel [like a] senior citizen," Eastwood responded. "I see what you're doing. I feel fine. I'm sorry that this life ended tragically for this lady. Obviously that wasn't a good thing."

Ironically, Blitzer's hard work also paid off for Lou "No Stinkin' Anna Nicole Coverage Here" Dobbs, what with his show being sandwiched as it is in the middle of "The Situation Room," where all that great Anna Nicole Is Dead coverage was being done.

Dobbs clocked an average of nearly 1.2 million viewers that night, compared with 751,000 viewers the previous night. Dobbs did not beat FNC's Brit Hume newscast, which logged nearly 1.7 million viewers.

We'll never know if those several hundred thousand viewers who bailed when Dobbs came on would have stuck around had he not disdained to make mention of the gimongous pop-culture story crashing all around him.

At any rate, he owes Blitzer an apology. Cafferty, too.