On Sunday, after heavy promotion, CNN finally aired its annual 'CNN Heroes' special and it flopped in the ratings.

You would think that something the network puts so much time, money and promotion into would be a ratings hit.

But, according to Nielsen, Heroes  performed poorly in the ratings, especially the demos. It was up in the demos compared to the last Heroes that CNN aired, but down compared to CNN's regular programing. 

How bad was it?

The show didn't even beat a rerun of Huckabee and Hannity specials on Fox News.

The heavily promoted program delivered a mere 509,000 in total viewers with only 158,000 in the key 25-54 demo.  Compared to the timeslot in 2014, CNN’s demo viewership dropped double-digits- down 16% while FNC’s programming was up 34% in the same timeslot. 

 Ouch!