Midterm Ratings: Fox Wins, Broadcast in Close SecondCNN and MSNBC don't even come close.By Sean Kerrigan Thursday, November 4, 2010 Covering a major Republican victory in the midterms this year, The Fox News Channel crushed its cable news competitors ratings at CNN and MSNBC and narrowly defeated the three major broadcast networks during their 10pm election coverage. When ratings were at their highest during the 8 and 9pm hours, Fox News had nearly three times the audience of CNN and three and a half times the audience of MSNBC. The broadcast arm of NBC came in second to Fox with about 600,000 fewer viewers, but had slightly more viewers in the key demographic (people 25-54 which largely determines ad revenue). It should be noted that the broadcast stations only covered the election from 10 to about 11 pm.
 Now look what you've done. You've got him all excited. As a point of reference, on a normal night at 8pm, Fox will get a little less than 4 million viewers, MSNBC will get about 1 million viewers and CNN will get about 500,000 viewers if they're lucky. Further Reading: Neilson Ratings for Cable News Neilson Ratings for Broadcast News NYT Blog on the Election Coverage, Media Hypocrisy NYT: Fox Gets Most Viewers Ever in a Midterm Election |