2009 Is Fox News’ Best Ratings Year Ever

By kevin 

Fox News, which launched in 1996, will finish out 2009 with the network’s best ratings in its history, averaging 2.2 million Total Viewers in primetime (551,000 in the A25-25-54 demo).

B&C reports:

FNC topped the competition in all dayparts: morning (1 million Total Viewers, 340,000 viewers in news’ target demographic of 25-54-year-olds); total day (1.2 million viewers, 323,000 in the demo); primetime (2.2 million viewers, 551,000 in the demo). Those numbers mark year-to-year demo gains of 14% in the morning, 16% in total day and 10% in primetime (Mon-Sun), according to Nielsen.

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Yesterday, CNN and MSNBC put out ratings info for 2009 (two weeks early), with MSNBC touting its first primetime demo defeat of CNN and CNN touting its best ratings year of the last five (excluding the 2008 election year.)

FNC will be the #1 news network for 2009, which should not surprise anyone who follows the TV news ratings, but the double-digit gains its programs posted are noteworthy.

Compared to the same timeslot in 2008, Glenn Beck is up 96% in total viewers (averaging 2.3 million). He’s also up 148% in the A24-54 demo, averaging 612,000 viewers.

Bill O’Reilly, who now makes it 10 years as the top cable news program, was up 13% in Total Viewers with 3.3 million tuning in and 27% in the demo (801,000). In 2009, O’Reilly often outdrew programs on broadcast networks — just this week, “The Factor” had a larger audience than ABC’s “Better Off Ted” (“Ted” drew 3.183 million viewers, while O’Reilly drew 3.299 million at 8pmET.)

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