Fox News had 13 of the top 15 programs in cable news in total viewers for Q1 2011, and 10 of the top 15 in the key adults 25-54 demo.
The top FNC program in both categories was “The O’Reilly Factor,” which averaged 3.1 million total viewers and 758,000 demo viewers. Even the 11 PM repeat of “The O’Reilly Factor” placed higher than any cable news program on another network.
CNN made some headway in Q1, with “AC360” and “Piers Morgan Tonight” cracking the top 10 in the key demo. “PMT” was the top CNN show in total viewers with 933,000, while “AC360” was the channel’s top show in the demo with 318,000.
MSNBC was able to place two programs in the top 15 in both total viewers and the demo. The top program among total and demo viewers was “The Rachel Maddow Show,” which drew 1.065 total viewers and 295,000 demo viewers.
To put the cable news program rankings in perspective: only two cable news programs cracked the Nielsen top 100 for Q1. That would be FNC’s analysis of the 2011 State of the Union Address (91st overall) and coverage of the Republican response (98th overall). No regularly scheduled cable news shows made the cut.
The top 18 cable programs (which includes live events like sports) were either ESPN sports coverage or MTV’s “Jersey Shore.”
Fox News was by far the top cable news channel for the first quarter of 2011. FNC placed fourth overall among cable networks in primetime with 1.92M total viewers, behind only USA Network, ESPN and TNT, and sixth overall in total day with 1.12M total viewers, behind Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, USA, TNT and Adult Swim.
MSNBC placed 27th in primetime with 841,000 total viewers and 29th in total day with 494,000 total viewers.
CNN placed 28th in primetime with 795,000 total viewers, and 24th in total day with 547,000 total viewers.
The cable program and network rankers are below.
1Q ’11 A25-54 cable news program ranker