Fox News Hits Ratings Highs, MSNBC Sputters in Busy Week

A busy week in news was a good one for Fox News Channel, which logged its second highest-rated frame of the year, but a weak one for MSNBC, which found itself deep in third place.

FNC, with several shows hitting 2014 highs, won in adults 25-54 and total viewers on both a primetime and total-day basis for Monday through Friday of last week. Tune-in was above average across the news board due to coverage of the protests in Ferguson and the murder of James Foley.

Looking at the Nielsen numbers, Fox News averaged 443,000 adults 25-54 in primetime to finish ahead of CNN (361,000) in the key news demo, with both networks more than doubling the tally of MSNBC (179,000). CNN had narrowly won in the demo on Monday and Tuesday, before Fox News asserted itself Wednesday through Friday.

In total-day numbers, FNC averaged 272,000, to 241,000 for CNN and just 106,000 for MSNBC.

The only week to rate higher for Fox News this year was the State of the Union frame in January.

As usual, it was no contest in total viewers, with Fox News (2.25 million in primetime, 1.26 million total-day) beating the combined tune-in of CNN (901,000 in primetime, 690,000 in total-day) and MSNBC (737,000 in primetime, 402,000 in total-day).

Among the highlights for Fox News was “The Kelly File” drawing its largest weekly demo audience of the calendar year (455,000), while “Hannity” had its most-watched week of the year (1.84 million) and its highest-rated demo performance to date in the 10 o’clock hour (421,000). Daytime shows “Outnumbered” and “Happening Now” also hit some 2014 highs.

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