Feb. Sweeps: Meet the Press Entrenched At #1; ABC Takes Second Place From CBS

It’s a big sweeps win for Meet the Press with Tim Russert: In February, MTP averaged 4,342,000 total viewers, 47 percent more than its closest competitor. In case you’re counting, Russert has placed first in total viewers for 38 consecutive sweeps.

MTP is down about 181,000 total viewers from Feb. 2006. The real movement is happening in the race for second place. This February, ABC’s This Week beat CBS’s Face the Nation by a mere 15,000 viewers. The shift in viewers has been dramatic: This time last year, CBS was beating ABC by 655,000 viewers. But CBS lost 407,000 viewers compared to last year, while ABC gained 263,000. Update: 7:28pm: CBS is still ahead of ABC, season-to-date, in total viewers (2.88 million vs. 2.71 million)…

Fox News Sunday, meanwhile, is in fourth place with 1,493,000 viewers…