MSNBC drew a victory in primetime last night, beating Fox News in the A25-54 demographic by 37,000 viewers, the network’s first primetime demo win in over a year. MSNBC had 348,000 viewers in the demo compared to Fox News’ 311,000. CNN and HLN followed with 250,000 and 141,000 demo viewers, respectively.
Fox News was still far out front in total viewers for primetime, beating MSNBC by over a million viewers (2,157,000 vs. 1,143,000).
Demo wins for Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell help lifted the network: Maddow’s program beat “The Kelly File” by 53,000 viewers and O’Donnell’s show beat “Hannity” by 61,000 viewers. “All In with Chris Hayes” trailed Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly by just 3,000 A25-54 viewers in the 8pmET timeslot.
Earlier in the day, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s press conference on the controversial George Washington Bridge lane closures gave the three networks a boost: all three were up in both total and demo viewers compared to the same time period the previous day. Fox News won the two-hour block, beating MSNBC and CNN combined in total and demo viewers, with CNN coming in second and MSNBC coming in third.
The full scoreboard will be up shortly.