The first full week of December was a fairly tame one for the cable news channels, according to weekly program rankings from Nielsen. As usual, Fox News Channel was the top-ranked cable newser, placing fourth in total viewers in primetime with 1.992 million total viewers, behind the NFL-powered ESPN (3.804M), USA Network (3.577M) and ABC Family (2.664M), which kicked off its “25 Days of Christmas” programming stunt.
MSNBC placed 24th overall with 842,000 viewers, while CNN placed 31st with 590,000.
In total day, FNC placed ninth overall, with MSNBC placing 30th and CNN 32nd.
There was one unusual occurrence though: FNC’s “The O’Reilly Factor” cracked the list of the top 40 telecasts on cable twice-the only cable news program to do so. The 12/07 and 12/08 editions of the program placed 40th and 34th, respectively.
The full cable ranker is after the jump.
Cable Ranker 120610