Fox News Channel Shepard Smith’s coverage of last week’s Los Angeles International Airport shootings beat out CNN and MSNBC in total viewers combined, according to Nielsen.
From 1 to 4 p.m. ET, in the thick of the shooting coverage, Smith’s coverage from the new Fox News Deck averaged 1.549 million total viewers — a 46 percent boost compared to the network’s average in the time period for the third quarter of 2013.
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In the key 25-54 news demo, Fox averaged 292,000 viewers, a 47 percent leap over the network’s third-quarter average.
By contrast, CNN averaged 807,000 total viewers during the time period, with 233,000 of them in the demo. Though CNN took a distant second place, the network also enjoyed big bumps from its shooting coverage, climbing 48 percent and 60 percent versus CNN’s third-quarter averages in total viewers and the demo, respectively.
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MSNBC came in third in the time period, with 409,000 total viewers in the time period — up 13 percent over its third-quarter average — and 86,000 in the demo, which actually constituted a 16 percent drop for the network compared to the third-quarter average in the time period.