Fox News Channel beats MSNBC, CNN combined in weekly viewership

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Fox News Channel dominated the cable news industry last week, topping all of basic cable among total day viewers for the 40th week in a row and topping MSNBC and CNN combined during prime time, according to Nielsen.

FNC’s 8-11 p.m. ET lineup of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” “Hannity,” “The Ingraham Angle” and “Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream” averaged 2.6 million viewers, compared to 1.5 million for MSNBC and just 832,000 for CNN. The period of Oct. 8-14 marks the second straight week that FNC topped MSNBC and CNN combined during prime time.

The jam-packed news week featured Kanye West’s White House visit, the swearing-in ceremony of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and a variety of midterm elections content. Fox News finished behind only the Major League Baseball-heavy TBS during prime time, ranking No. 2 among all of basic cable for the week for total viewers. ESPN, MSNBC, Hallmark Channel, HGTV, USA, Fox Sports 1, TLC and Discovery joined the Top 10, while CNN finished No. 14.

Several Fox News programs topped the NFL Network’s highly publicized “Thursday Night Football,” and “The Story with Martha MacCallum” had the distinction of being the highest-rated cable news show of the week when the Oct. 8 episode averaged 4 million viewers. FNC also topped cable news in the key demo of adults ages 25-54, averaging 487,000 prime-time viewers while CNN averaged 274,000 and MSNBC finished third with 265,000.

As for total day viewers, Fox News finished No. 1 across all of basic cable for the 40th consecutive week by averaging 1.6 million viewers. TBS, ESPN, MSNBC and Nickelodeon followed, but failed to average over 1 million viewers, respectively. Fox News also topped cable news challengers combined in this category, as MSNBC averaged 852,000 and CNN averaged only 634,000 total day viewers.

FNC averaged 309,000 total day viewers among the key demo, compared to 285,000 for CNN and 149,000 for MSNBC. In the process, Fox News gained 20 percent in prime-time viewers and went up 13 percent in total day viewers versus a comparable week in 2017; MSNBC and CNN lost viewers over the same period, according to TVNewser.