Fox News was the top network in all of cable in primetime last week, drawing close to two million viewers.
FNC attracted 1,934,000 primetime viewers, ranking first ahead of TBS, AMC, USA and Discovery.
The network’s strong primetime was due in large part to a spike in Bill O’Reilly‘s ratings, which have seen growth in his 8 p.m. ET time slot as controversy ensues involving claims he’s made about past reporting.
As TheWrap reported, O’Reilly guided viewers to a statement from his former colleague Bob Sirkin on Monday. Sirkin backed O’Reilly’s claim to have witnessed the suicide of George de Mohrenschildt, an associate of JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, back in 1977.
Sirkin’s — and O’Reilly’s — version of events still doesn’t square with an audio tape CNN aired clearly indicating that O’Reilly was in Dallas the day de Mohrenschildt committed suicide in Florida.
O’Reilly has not addressed the audio tape placing him in Texas. In an interview with The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple, Sirkin did:
“I have no explanation for it,” says Sirkin, “other than to say that possibly they have that tape confused with a call that O’Reilly made to Fonzi from Florida … I don’t understand myself how that tape jibes with the facts as I know it.”
On top of its primetime victory, Fox News also had its highest-rated week in total day, delivering 1,172,000 in total viewers.