Fox News Channel won Monday’s cable coverage of President Bush’s final State of the Union address, beating CNN and MSNBC combined in both total viewers and the A25-54 demo (Live +SD). But as Fox News Channel declined in viewership year-over-year, CNN increased.
This year, FNC had 4,480,000 total viewers; CNN had 2,692,000 and MSNBC drew 1,183,000. During last year’s coverage, FNC had 4,560,000 viewers, while CNN had 1,740,000 and MSNBC had 1,380,000. In 2006, FNC had their highest SOTU viewership with 6,462,000. CNN finished second that year with 2,210,000 and MSNBC had 707,000 total viewers.
Although this year’s address was Bush’s lowest rated on the networks combined (cable & broadcast), more viewers watched this year’s SOTU on the three cable channels than did last year.
During this year’s coverage in the A25-54 demo, FNC had 1,410,000 viewers; that’s more than CNN (883,000) and MSNBC (521,000) combined.
FNC also won the coverage of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius‘ Democratic response in both categories, again beating the other two networks combined in total viewers.
> Related:
• 2007 SOTU ratings