Fox News Channel finished up the third quarter of 2014 with a milestone, topping all of basic cable — including USA, ESPN and TNT — in total viewers for weekday primetime since Fox News launched in 1996.
For the quarter, Fox News averaged 1.705 million total viewers Monday-Sunday from 7 to 11 p.m. — the hours that the news channel switched its primetime to nearly a year ago. That marks an 11 percent increase over Q3 of 2014.
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Compare that to second-place USA Network, which averaged 1.801 million total primetime viewers Monday-Sunday from 7 to 11 p.m. — a 22 precent drop from the same quarter last year. TNT, meanwhile, averaged 1.636 million, an 11 percent drop.
ESPN’s average was 1.664 million, a 7 percent decline over the same period last year.
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It’s likely, of course, that USA Network and TNT’s numbers will rise with delayed viewing factored in, while Fox News is unlikely to receive a similar boost.
In the traditional 8 to 11 p.m. primetime that Fox News abandoned nearly a year ago, this marks the first time that the network has topped basic cable in more than 10 years, since the Iraq war in 2003.
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In terms of cable-news competition, Fox News handily — and predictably — won the quarter, beating out its top two competitors CNN and MSNBC combined. Compared to the 1.705 million total viewers that Fox News averaged, CNN averaged 548,000 a six percent improvement over the same period next year. MSNBC, meanwhile, averaged 552,000 total viewers over the quarter.
In the key 25-54 news demo, Fox News Channel averaged 292,000 viewers, a 10 percent improvement, compared to 179,000 demo viewers for CNN (up 5 percent) and 143,000 for MSNBC, which represents a 21 percent drop.
HLN, meanwhile, averaged 330,000 total viewers and 114,000 in the demo — declines of 8 percent and 14 percent, respectively.