"Countdown" Beats "O'Reilly Factor" In Ratings Demo For First Time Ever

MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" beat Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" in the key Adults 25-54 demographic for the first time ever last week.

"Countdown" averaged 477,000 viewers (A25-54) vs. O'Reilly's 472,000 (excluding Tuesday's primary coverage). This marks the first time that MSNBC has beaten Fox News in O'Reilly's 8pm time slot since June 2001.

Comments

[RJII]

Luv you Olbie. you're wittier than Bill O'lielley

[wutzhappn]

Olbermann = Sexist Windbag Pig.

[F33bs]

wutzhappen:

Which is why he has a woman (Rachel Maddow) providing commentary every night?

[EbonBear]

It's about momentum. Faux news has unashamedly propoganised, cheerleaded and lied for the Bush admin. Now that admin is about as popular as the clap, they, and Bill-O especially, lose ground.

KO isn't perfect but he's about the only unapologetic liberal with such a high profile (Stewert and Colbert are satirists and don't count, Maher is a libertarian). He gives us some kind of voice, however imperfect, in the media.

[jeanwny]

Fox commentators ? are dropping like flies, we can only hope that Sean H might be the next to go. Not going to be so easy this time to pull the wool over the eyes of the newly registered young voters Rupert

[Diego]

Oberman would look in a Nazi uniform...

[sharonh]

Fascist fuscia.

[Bigeasy]

Trouble with Bill O'Reilly he gets these people on his show to discuss different topics and whatever they discuss if it does'nt coincide with his view he lets them have it. Why have people on his show at all why not just him giving his views thats what he does anyway. I used to watch O'Reilly until I saw holyer than thou O'Reilly hammer people because their views did'nt coincide with his.

[jellinda]

My whole family watches Olbermann - wouldn't miss it every night, and in fact, brings the family together for dinners and conversation!! Olbermann, doin his part for the nuclear family!! TGKO!

[sharonh]

Before or after American Idol?

[Merrellt]

This does not surprise me. I used to watch him once in awhile, but when he started completely disrailing gays and the California decision to treat all its citizens equally, he lost me once and for all. In fact I wrote him to tell him so. Never heard from him...surprise! Another biggot bites the dust. Maybe America is finally turning the corner.

[schicklett3]

I bet Bill O'Reilly is having a meltdown over this! LOL

[bigironal25]

I hope so!

[ProgressiveBum]

I never understood why anybody would prefer to watch an elderly reality-challenged ranting retard over a true journalist. Congratulations Keith!

[delysia]

Great comment! My sentiments exactly.

[cheneyhasawarmachine]

if only you libs took this itty bitty sign of success for olbermann the same way for our efforts in iraq.

[Plisko]

yea. . . that's totally the same thing. How insightful.

[exPatPatti]

What?

[nonconformist2]

Wow. You really do watch Fox news. Otherwise you'd know better.

[theconsigliere1]

Way to go Keith Olbermann! Countdown is my favorite pol show. I love the Ted Baxter voice when he is quoting Billo. Keep up the good work.

[genseric]

O'Reilly's show is awful. It used to be better. He was on the cutting edge early 2000s in talking about the immigration invasion and a few other subjects. Then he started these fanatical attacks on the secular nation. This continues to baffle me. Doesn't he know we are not a theocracy? Then his guests became losers like Dennis Miller, the body language girl, endless videos of kids fooling around, etc. I rarely watch the show but a lot of people watch just out habit. My mother turns it on Fox and just leaves it there all night; she has the Neilson ratings box. i suspect it's mostly inertia by most viewers. Olberman is ok but I have a large TV and his head is like 3 feet long. Can he sit back a little from the camera? The anti-Hillary screeds of MSNBC has lost them some viewers as well. So it's a mixed bag. Lou Dobbs seems to be the only one of all of them that addresses the issues that affect me directly, especially the H1B visa situation which has replaced hundreds of thousands of American engineers with foreigners.

[JDJase]

I used to agree with you about Lou Dobbs, until he joined the bandwagon of criticizing Obama for the Flag Lapel Pin "controversy," I was shocked that Loud Dobbs stooped down so low on that.

[genseric]

My understanding was that he criticized Obama because he backed down and started wearing the pin after saying it was fake patriotism. Obama was right the first time but it wasn't worth the fight.

[IRepTheKing]

his showis by far better than Bill-o's. Most people watch Oreilly to see if he's gonna have another "do it live!" moment. LOL

[KINGS]

Way to go Keith you are the man. Congrats on your success.

[Gericault]

I love ya Keith, but I think it's kind of embarrassing it took so long to beat the "Frank Burns" of cable television.

[jwgmac]

The" Frank Burns" of cable-Thats hilarious!

[spiffarino]

Considering how many more local cable companies carry FNC than MSNBC, I'd say this is one hell of a coup.

MSNBC has far fewer cable outlets, which has much to do with its lower overall ratings. When more locals carry MSNBC, the numbers will grow.

[bigironal25]

To O'Lielly, that has to be like pouring salt into a gaping wound.That's gotta smart huh Billo?

[slope142]

Rupert Murdoch should be seeing the light just about now. People seem to be getting tired of the Fox News spew. It's lost it's shock / entertainment value and if he reads these posts, he'll see that the people who stand up for everything Fox are just a little bit disturbed, thus disturbing. You're known by the company you keep Rupert.