FNC & CNN Share Ratings Victories for First Presidential Debate

8.211 million Total Viewers watched Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama debate on Fox News Channel, enough for first place on cable. [ABC drew more than 11 million viewers. More on that tomorrow.] But more younger viewers watched the debate on CNN. (Maybe it was that Obama text message).

CNN ranked #1 in the A25-54 demo with 3.272 million viewers, a 25% advantage over FNC’s 2.612 million and 93% more than MSNBC’s 1.691 million.

Back to Total Viewers, CNN ranked second with 7.140 million. MSNBC followed with 3.922 million.

The hour-by-hour breakdown is in The Scoreboard…