Viewership was down across the board in cable news compared to last April, and Fox News was no exception. Still, the competition has not be able to come close to the viewership Fox News has been drawing this year, or, for that matter, for the past 100 months, which is how long FNC has been #1 in cable news.
FNC’s raw numbers:
Total day (Mon-Sun): 1.05M Total / 287K A25-54
Prime (Mon-Sun): 1.92M Total / 485K A25-54
With this month’s ratings, FNC marks 100 months as the most-watched cable news network, a streak begun in January 2002.
As Hal Boedeker in the Orlando Sentinel notes, Fox also had the top 9 programs in cable news. “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” cracked the top 10. Over the last two quarters, FNC had the top 13 programs in total viewers.
Meanwhile, Fox was down -19% in primetime total viewers and down -13% in the demo compared to last April, but still topped CNN, HLN, and MSNBC combined in total viewers during primetime. FNC was down double digits year-to-year in total day as well (-17% total viewers/-16% demo).
The network was also down month-to-month in total viewers and the demo in prime and total day. In the context of the big ratings streak the network has been on of late — in Q1, Fox News had its best quarter ever in total day — some leveling off might not come as a complete surprise.
“The O’Reilly Factor,” “Glenn Beck,” and “Hannity” were the top three programs, respectively in cable news. “O’Reilly” averaged 2.99M total viewers (765K demo), “Beck” averaged 2.12M total viewers (577K demo), and “Hannity” averaged 2.07M total viewers (537K demo).