Fox News was the most-watched channel among all of cable in total day viewers, averaging 1.29 million for the week of Sept. 5-11, nearly beating CNN and MSNBC combined.
Both Bret Baier and Brit Hume provided the top cable news network with nice ratings boosts in new time slots. Fox News has now won the total day crown for 10 of the past 11 weeks. Nickelodeon, ESPN, Adult Swim and HGTV join Fox News among the top five cable networks last week.
CNN and MSNBC continue to battle for second place behind Fox News in the cable news ratings war. MSNBC finished as the No. 8 primetime network, averaging 1.2 million viewers to beat CNN’s 1.05 million. However, the roles are reversed among total day viewers, with CNN edging MSNBC 666,000 to 642,000. CNN and MSNBC total 1.3 million viewers combined, slightly edging Fox News’ 1.29 million.
Fox News’ total day victory was helped by “On the Record with Brit Hume,” which averaged 2.2 million viewers, up five percent from the previous week and up eight percent compared to the rest of 2016. Hume took over Fox News’ “On the Record” earlier this month following Greta Van Susteren’s surprise decision to leave the network.
In addition, Fox News was No. 2 in primetime, behind only ESPN’s football-heavy programming that included several prominent college football games. Fox News averaged 2.2 million primetime viewers, compared to 2.4 million for ESPN. Discovery Channel, HGTV and USA join FNC and ESPN among the top five from 8-11 p.m.
Baier debuted his new Sunday edition of “Special Report” with nearly two million viewers, making it the highest-rated show on Sunday overall. Baier recently told TheWrap that a move to primetime won’t impact his down-the-middle political reputation.
“I would much rather prefer to get to election day and viewers have no clue which way I would vote,” he said. “Hopefully, that will enable us to cover all campaigns exactly the same.”