Sebelius Hearing Boosts Cable News Ratings

By Merrill Knox 

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius‘ testimony in front of Congress provided a boost to cable news ratings yesterday. Fox News was far out front from 9am to 1pmET, beating MSNBC, CNN and HLN combined in both total viewers and the demo.

All three networks were up compared to the same time period the previous day: Fox News was up +27% in both total viewers and the A25-54 demographic, while CNN was up +15% in total viewers and +18% in A25-54 viewers. MSNBC was up +30% and +5%, respectively. Compared to their Q3 2013 averages, Fox was up across the board and CNN was down across the board. MSNBC was up in total viewers but down in the demo.

Although coverage of the hearing spilled over into primetime, CNN their lowest demo rating this year, delivering just 67,000 A25-54 viewers. On Fox News, Megyn Kelly’s “The Kelly File” topped cable news in the demo last night, averaging 445,000 A25-54 viewers.

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Averages from 9am-1pmET:

Fox News: 1,651,000 total viewers / 319,000 A25-54

CNN: 408,000 total viewers / 97,000 A25-54

MSNBC: 380,000 total viewers / 84,000 A25-54

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