Fox News viewers being recruited by CNN?

Today during the Fox News morning show, a commercial advertising CNN's Anderson Cooper show was shown which begs the question: "Is CNN trying to recruit viewers from Fox News?"

Has CNN, once that giant of the cable news industry, realized the importance of Fox News and its viewers?

Fox News consistently leads in the cable news ratings. In 2007, it was the number one cable news network followed by CNN but the story goes deeper than that. As reported by Broadcasting & Cable:

For the year in primetime, Fox News was the No. 6-ranked cable channel behind USA Network, TNT, ESPN, TBS and Lifetime Television. That’s two notches higher than its ranking last year. CNN, its closest news competitor, was No. 26, down one.

On October 28, 2008, TV Week reported:

Fox News Channel celebrated its 12th anniversary with a big ratings win that made it the second most-watched basic cable network in prime-time for the month. Interest in the presidential election and the economic drama were the chief factors driving viewership.

October also has been a big month for MSNBC, whose prime-time lineup, for the first time in its 12-year history, beat CNN in the 25- to 54-year-old demo most sought by advertisers buying time in news programming.

Fox averaged 3.36 million total viewers in prime time for the month, second only to TBS (3.63 million total viewers), and claimed four of the top five cable news programs for the month, which ended Sunday, Oct. 26, according to Nielsen Media Research rules. No. 1 on that list of programs for the 95th consecutive month was “The O’Reilly Factor,” which averaged 4 million total viewers.

CNN averaged 2.14 million viewers in prime time.

Fox News leading the pack ... not bad for a network that has been around for only 12 years.