Fox News Crushes Competition in October Ratings

Fox News dominated ratings in October, outmatching its main competitors, CNN and MSNBC.

Spearheading the “resistance” hasn’t been working out for CNN and MSNBC, both of which would have to double their ratings to match Fox News. It’s yet the latest sign that the Trump Train is strong, and heading full steam ahead into midterms.

According to The Hill, “Fox averaged 2.8 million total viewers in prime time, up 25 percent from October 2017. MSNBC placed second in the category, with 1.58 million viewers, while CNN finished third, with 931,000 viewers, during the time period.”

The contrast is even starker in the key 25-54-year-old demographic, where CNN averaged 290,000 viewers, MSNBC 281,000, and Fox News 540,000.

The Rundown

In fairness, since every major network except Fox leans to the Left, their ratings are fragmented across networks. Still, MSNBC and CNN are Fox’s most direct competitors, and they’re having their behinds handed to them. Hannity averages 3.5 million viewers, Tucker Carlson 3.23 million, Laura Ingraham 2.97 million, Brett Baier 2.6 million, and even The Five brings in 2.84 million. By contrast, CNN’s most viewed program (Chris Cuomo) only draws in 957,000 viewers. Data wasn’t provided by The Hill on how MSNBC’s most-viewed show (Rachel Maddow) performed, it was just mentioned that her show made the “top five” most watched in October. Prior data shows that Maddow is one of the few who can compete with Fox. In August she even managed to briefly surpass Hannity in the ratings. However, Maddow is literally the only show on the network capable of drawing such an audience.

CNN’s and MSNBC’s ratings are so poor that they’re consistency beat out by children’s cartoons (which are certainly an intellectual competitor of theirs). And more people are tuning into the home improvement channel (HGTV) than CNN in primetime. Indeed, most would rather watch Spongebob Squarepants or learn how to fix a sink than tune into CNN. It’s no wonder they had to monopolize their presence in airports, or else no one would be watching!

Fox News’ success is not surprising

What incentive is there to tune into a network like CNN anyway? Given how often they’ll milk stories (such as their endless coverage of the Stormy Daniels saga), what’s the need to tune in? You could turn on the TV at 3 A.M. and they’ll be discussing the same stories they analyzed in prime time. Nor do I see any appeal in their hosts. And who would want to tune into Don Lemon, who said just the other day that “We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right”?

That’s not exactly objective reporting. And why tune into Brian Stelter, who knowingly ignores stories that he knows would drum up support for Trump, such as the approaching migrant caravan?

People are already voting with their eyeballs – and they’ve elected Fox News.

By Matt

Matt is the co-founder of Unbiased America and a freelance writer specializing in economics and politics. He’s been published... More about Matt

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