Fox News Celebrates Major Ratings Milestone After Topping All Cable News Networks Again
Fox News is celebrating a milestone that its competitors may never come close to duplicating.
August marked the 200th consecutive month as the most-watched cable news network, based on ratings from Nielsen Media Research. Fox is also celebrating the 26th consecutive month of being the most-watched cable network in the country.
The news giant announced its victories in a press release, touting it as a “major milestone.”
And speaking of winning streaks, “Hannity” is on a winning streak of its own, as the Fox News program hosted by Sean Hannity is now on a five-month streak at No. 1 among cable news networks for both total viewers and highest viewership in the 25-54 age demographic, considered the most coveted among advertisers.
Additionally, Fox News is home to 12 of the top 20 cable news programs as measured by total viewership, and nine of the top 20 cable news programs among the 25-54 demographic. “Hannity,” “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” and “The Ingraham Angle” were all in the top five in both categories.
Fox News also claimed the biggest year-over-year audience gains among the cable news channels in prime time (8-11 p.m. Eastern) viewership. Fox News saw its prime time viewership increase 4 percent from last year. MSNBC enjoyed a 1 percent increase, while CNN saw a 12 percent decrease in overall prime time viewership.
“Hannity” saw a 15 percent increase in total viewers over last year, while “Tucker Carlson Tonight” enjoyed a 3 percent increase.
Also landing in the winner’s circle for Fox was “Fox & Friends,” which was the most watched morning show among the cable news networks. The program averaged 1.4 million total viewers for the month, beating out MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” (1.14 million average) and CNN’s “New Day” (544,000).
According to Fox News, that marks 202 months for “Fox & Friends” as the top-ranked cable news program in its timeslot.
As good as the numbers were for Fox News in August, they were just as bad for CNN.
For total broadcast day viewers, CNN was down 15 percent from the same month last year, and down 12 percent in prime time.
While Fox News has enjoyed the top spot in cable news for years, President Donald Trump has made the network a political focal point since his transition into politics.
The president has been a vocal supporter of the cable news giant, often comparing them to other networks that he calls “fake news.”
“Oftentimes I’m getting ready to do the fake news with CNN or MSNBC … MSNBC is so corrupt it’s so disgusting,” Trump said earlier this month, as was previously reported by The Western Journal.
“I would say they’re almost, they’re worse,” he said. “They’re really a fake newsgroup of people.”
“Here’s the good news — the guys that we love, they’re blowing them away in the ratings,” Trump said. He then mentioned a list of Fox News hosts, including Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson and, as Trump referred to him, “the great Lou Dobbs.”
“CNN is down at the bottom of the totem pole, MSNBC isn’t even close to being next to these shows,” Trump said. “So we’re blowing them away, and that’s good because those are the people that love us.”
It’s unclear whether the relationship between Fox News and Trump has helped or hurt the ratings at the news network, but their recent victory would suggest that they have successfully found what viewers want to see.
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