Earlier this week at the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet and Telecom Conference in Florida, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes talked about CNN’s programming changes, ratings growth, and how the network remains a destination for breaking news viewers:
If you’re looking at television, everybody knows we are the place to go. If you see what happens at CNN, whenever there is world-breaking news we beat everybody.
Well, not exactly “everybody.”
Fox News, which has been the No. 1 news network for 13 years straight, also regularly — but not always — beats CNN when news breaks.
Fox News was most-watched — in viewers and the demo — for breaking news coverage of the Chris Christie bridge drama in early 2014, the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner exchange in June, when the Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down over Ukraine in July, the deaths of Robin Williams in August and Joan Rivers in September, and the Canadian Parliament attack in October, among other stories.
But in two of the biggest breaking stories of the last few months: the the Ferguson Grand Jury announcement in November and the attack on Charlie Hebdo in January, Fox News took total viewers while CNN had the most viewers in the ad-friendly A25-54 demo.
Here’s a look at the biggest breaking news stories of the last 14 months, and the viewership they’ve drawn.