London 7/7: Cable News Ratings

Fox News beat CNN on another international story. FNC averaged 500,000 more viewers than CNN yesterday, as the cable nets covered the London bombings.

Still, CNN scored big gains versus June 2005: CNN was up 140% in total day compared to last month’s averages. FNC was up 61% and MSNBC was up 104%. MSNBC’s ratings increases were even higher: The network’s ratings were up 263% between 9am and 6pm. (In the 1pm hour, MSNBC’s ratings were 434% above June averages.)

By 8am, Fox News was recording primetime-like numbers, with almost 2 million viewers. CNN beat FNC for one hour: 4 to 5pm, when CNN had 1,374,000 and FNC had 1,272,000.

Since all the networks recorded their program names differently, here is the time period data for the initial hours of breaking news:

5am: FNC: 358,000 / CNN: 239,000 / MSNBC: 129,000

6am: FNC: 908,000 / CNN: 468,000 / MSNBC: 273,000

7am: FNC: 1,473,000 / CNN: 840,000 / MSNBC: 477,000

8am: FNC: 1,908,000 / CNN: 1,169,000 / MSNBC: 477,000

9am: FNC: 2,169,000 / CNN: 1,257,000 / MSNBC: 548,000

10am: FNC: 2,335,000 / CNN: 1,388,000 / MSNBC: 528,000

11am: FNC: 2,137,000 / CNN: 1,417,000 / MSNBC: 595,000

12pm: FNC: 1,669,000 / CNN: 1,135,000 / MSNBC: 564,000

1pm: FNC: 1,242,000 / CNN: 1,216,000 / MSNBC: 667,000

2pm: FNC: 1,524,000 / CNN: 1,404,000 / MSNBC: 540,000

3pm: FNC: 1,639,000 / CNN: 1,238,000 / MSNBC: 468,000

4pm: FNC: 1,272,000 / CNN: 1,374,000 / MSNBC: 520,000

The primetime #s will follow in a separate post…