MSNBC, CNN Tie For #2 In Demo

In the race for second place in the cable news wars, MSNBC scored several victories in the 25-54 demographic last week. For Monday-Friday primetime, MSNBC tied CNN in the demo with 188,000 viewers each. Until last week, MSNBC had never tied CNN in the primetime demo before (and the last time they beat ’em in the demo was in December 2002).

MSNBC beat CNN at 5, 7, 8, and 10pm for the week in the demo. At 7pm, Chris Matthews averaged 137,000 demo viewers while Wolf Blitzer had 133,000. At 8pm, Keith Olbermann had 182,000 demo viewers while Paula Zahn had 154,000. And at 10pm, Joe Scarborough had 213,000 demo viewers while Anderson Cooper had 210,000.