Rachel Maddow‘s ratings momentum continues. Last week, the MSNBC host had the most-watched cable news show among younger viewers averaging 623,600 viewers vs. 617,800 for the next most-watched, FNC’s O’Reilly Factor.
The last time Maddow won the week in the demo was 5 months ago, the week of Oct. 10, 2016. That happened to be the week after the biggest crisis to hit the Donald Trump campaign emerged, the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape.
As the AP’s David Bauder reports, Maddow’s viewership “sank like a stone” following Trump’s election, “as depressed liberals avoided politics, and bottomed out over the holidays. Slowly, they re-emerged, becoming active and interested again.”
And Maddow isn’t taking it for granted. “I’m grateful for it. It is nice for me that it is happening at a time when I feel we are doing some of our best work.” But she wants her viewers to know what she isn’t.
“People want to draft me as an activist all the time, ascribe that role to me. I’m not. The reason I know I’m not is that I stopped doing that in order to be the person who explained the news and delivered the news instead. It’s a very clear line to me.”