The joke on Saturday Night Live last night about the MSNBC Democratic Forum went like this: “In case you’re wondering what a forum is it’s a debate no one watches.”
But not quite. According to Nielsen overnight ratings, MSNBC was No. 1 in the A25-54 demo averaging 417,000 viewers Friday night. 2.332 million total viewers watched the 2-hour Democratic Forum, giving MSNBC second place from 8-10 p.m. ET behind Fox News which averaged 2.435 million.
The second hour, at 9 p.m. ET, which included the final 10 minutes of Bernie Sanders‘ appearance and the 30-minute Q&A with Hillary Clinton as well as post-Forum analysis, came in first on cable news with 2.447 million, giving MSNBC its first win over FNC since 2014 and the largest win over CNN since 2011. Full Nielsen ratings will be in the TVNewser Scoreboard after 4 p.m. Monday.