Fox News Claims Top 11 Cable News Programs In April, #2 Network In Cable

Fox News had another dominant month, claiming the top 11 program spots in cable news and placing 2nd in all of cable in primetime, behind only USA.

"The O'Reilly Factor" was the #1 cable news show in April, averaging 3.498 million total viewers. "Hannity" (2.566 million), "Glenn Beck" (2.230 million), "On the Record with Greta van Susteren" (2.173 million) and "Special Report with Bret Baier" (1.631 million) rounded out the top five. The full top 20 appears below.

Fox News also placed #2 among all cable networks in primetime, averaging 2.350 total viewers. USA took the top spot with 3.044 million total viewers, just 694,000 ahead of Fox News. Fox News is currently selling advertisers on the idea that it is gunning for USA's cable crown.

CNN placed 23rd with an average of 917,000 total viewers; MSNBC came in 25th with an average of 826,000 total viewers.

Interesting Note: While end-of-month ratings typically mean press releases galore, Fox News has not issued a release on their April ratings win (unlike the other three networks, who each spun various victories or growth figures). A network insider told me, "We didn't want to take away from the battle for fourth that's raging between CNN, MSNBC and Headline News [HLN]."

Top 20 Cable News Programs by total viewers, April 2009

1. "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News): 3,498,000 total viewers
2. "Hannity" (Fox News): 2,566,000 total viewers
3. "Glenn Beck" (Fox News): 2,230,000 total viewers
4. "On the Record with Greta van Susteren" (Fox News): 2,173,000 total viewers
5. "Special Report with Bret Baier" (Fox News): 2,047,000 total viewers
6. "The Fox Report with Shepard Smith" (Fox News): 1,915,000 total viewers
7. "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News, repeat): 1,723,000 total viewers
8. "Your World with Neil Cavuto" (Fox News): 1,520,000 total viewers
9. "America's Newsroom" (Fox News): 1,505,000 total viewers
10. "Studio B with Shepard Smith" (Fox News): 1,314,000 total viewers
11. "Happening Now" (Fox News): 1,247,000 total viewers
12. "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" (MSNBC): 1,237,000 total viewers
13. "The Live Desk" (Fox News): 1,210,000 total viewers
14. "Larry King Live" (CNN): 1,093,000 total viewers
15. "Anderson Cooper 360" (CNN): 1,058,000 total viewers
16. "The Rachel Maddow Show" (MSNBC): 1,042,000 total viewers
17. "Situation Room" (CNN): 898,000 total viewers
18. "Lou Dobbs Tonight" (CNN): 826,000 total viewers
19. "Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull" (CNN): 786,000 total viewers
20. "CNN Newsroom" (CNN): 725,000 total viewers

Comments

[Condi1836]

These numbers make sense to me because for some people faux news is the only thing they watch all day and all night. The rest of us are tuning into many many different things. When my 85 year old mother, who never watched a beauty pagent in her life, started telling me what a lovely Christian girl Miss California is I knew she started drinking the kool-ade!!!!

[CSull2005]

Just proves how many ignorant people there are in this country. Which of course, explinas George Bush, the Christian Coalition, Rush Limbaugh et al. - Stupid people do stupid things - like watch Faux News.

[RachelMadcow]

Wow this surely sounds like the MSNBC crowd.
Talking to like minded folks all the time. They never have a conflicting POV on and why was MSNBC and their hosts able to get away with teabagging jokes? Isn't that hate speech and sterotypes? Why no outrage there?

[Aristophanes Smith]

Why is the list presented as a Top 20 Cable *News* Programs. The O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck, et al programs are not NEWS programs. They are one-sided biased OPINION programs.

[merger]

I watch all 3 cable news networks. MSNBC is as guilty as any network of promoting a one-sided biased opinion based programing. I think CNN is still the most balanced. I turn between KO and BO during their hour and I find one staunchly liberal and one staunchly conservative respectively.

[johnie2xs]

Stupid ignorant people are a very close-knit, unimaginative, and single-minded group. They all do not travel far from their comfort zones. Ignorance, simple-mindedness, and prejudice laced with other peoples pain, are their hallmark attractions. Is it any wonder that they flock to the likes of Grace, Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Savage, and the like? Fox News is their Mecca. You will not find them anywhere near an outlet that provokes thought. They need, and are drawn to pre-masticated bullsh*t, and FNC provides that in copious amounts.

[RachelMadcow]

Wow this surely sounds like the MSNBC crowd.
Talking to like minded folks all the time. They never have a conflicting POV on and why was MSNBC and their hosts able to get away with teabagging jokes? Isn't that hate speech and sterotypes? Why no outrage there?
Liberals get to pick and choose when to be upstanding and noble and the rest of the time they can vulgarly attack people like Ms. Califorinia for no reason other than they disagree with her POV that she was asked for and kinldy gave an honest answer for. Why is what she said offensive at all? Why do liberals egt away with being hypocrites? Perezs Hilton's response was grossly offensive and yet he is hailed by liberals and not one of you have said a bad word about the guy. His entire response was disgusting and yet your silence condones it. Not one feminist group and not one rights group has come to this womans defense. That is disgusting and proves where you people draw the line on these things, whatever you feel at the moment is the right thing for liberals.

[vt1991]

Wow, you seem to be amazed that this 'sounds' like the MSNBC crowd' for every other posting in this thread. Maybe you have become so brainwashed by FOX that hearing the words of the the ordinary rest of the population seems amazing to you. All of the talking points that you get from Faux News can be broken down by simple reasoning by a person with half a brain. When the Faux News crowd organize protests and call a 3% tax increase on the wealthiest people Fascism, and indiscriminately criticize the spending required to resuscitate this country, which was brought down by their own party, I find it very difficult to see either intelligence, honesty, or authority in what they have to say.

[Bettysdad]

And Bud is the most popular beer in America.

Now find a beer expert that says it's the best.

No one has ever gone broke underestimating the taste of the American people - H.L. Mencken.

Garbage sells.

Fox proves it.

[merger]

Keith O is pretty radical and rude. A moderate like me cringes when ever he speaks. I could be very wrong, but I think most of America is pretty moderate politically. We embrace some ideals from both the left and the right. Fox is clearly a right leaning news org. and MSNBC is clearly a left leaning news org. I just wade through the crap that both dish out to try to get to the truth. I rely on CNN the most.

[RevBookburn]

Fox may still have viewing numbers, but they have exposed themselves as a pure spin-zone of propaganda and falsehood. People will be drawn towards them for awhile, similar to needing to see the wrestlers or 3 Stooges. But Fox has universally discredited itself by being a network of extreme teabaggers. Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta

[Austrian School]

Maybe if you loons keep denigrating FOX, they'll get even more viewers? Who knows. If some whack-job told me not to watch FOX, that's exactly the first place i'd go.

But at the very least the hateful rhetoric doesn't seem to be working too well, now does it? Even the almighty president BO can't affect their ratings.

(Proceed with anger now.)

[RobVukovic]

That's how I figured FOX got it's viewers, they were sent there by whack jobs!

[swan1]

The other networks share the humans. Fox has a hold on the tea bagging haters. Besides, many cable systems don't carry MSNBC.

[RobVukovic]

The reason FOX has high ratings is that they manage to lock in all of the last 5 million republicans in the country. I also believe that liberals have more fun living actual lives and doing actual things rather than staying glued to conservative talk radio all day and conservative faux news all night.

[Austrian School]

Keep telling yourself that, as your comrades orgazm over Keith Olberman and MSNBC...

[RobVukovic]

Simply brilliant riposte Austrian School. If you are a big supporter of FOX us liberals have absolutely nothing to be worried about. I don't watch any of the cable TV news shows as I think all of the talking heads preach to their own choirs and have little to no impact on how people vote or even think as far as that goes. Like I said, I have a life and a brain. I can read and make up my own mind.

[Bettysdad]

I don't understand why you guys even bother to fight.

The entire history of the world is a steady trajectory to the left, and you guys have never won a single fight.

Everything we fight for we win. Sometimes takes a year; sometimes five years; sometimes a generation or two. But we ALWAYS win.

The world is more liberal than 50 years ago; 150 years ago; 500 years ago, 50,000 years ago.

You're fighting a losing battle. Save your breath. You're just losers.

[ConcernedAmerican]

I love the trolls who tout Fox News as always being #1.

They can have their #1 rankings in cable news.

I'll take having the White House, Congress and Senate instead.

[lglglg]

Almost a year ago, I received a notice from my cable TV supplier, the evil Comcast, that they were moving MSNBC to a digital tier and off basic cable. That meant that I needed a special box to get MSNBC, which I did. Recently, I got a promotional mailing from Verizon FIOS urging cable TV customers to switch to their service. I noticed that under 'NEWS' channels, there was a dagger symbol for MSNBC, meaning that it MAY not be available to ALL customers. There was no such symbology for the usual suspects: Fox "News", CNN or even HLN, but it was absent for Fox's business "news" channel or Bloomberg, which hardly anyone watches. Why does NBC-Universal allow this to happen? I may call Ed Schultz about this when his radio show returns to Boston next week (on WWZN-AM 1510).

[Phxflyer]

People stop to watch car accidents, too.

But there is a reason. Fox appeals to the 19 percent who claim to be republican, and they spend all day watching tv. A lot of them do it because their demographic is old (67+ years on average) and the rest because they simply aren't that bright.

[MsPeppy]

I watch O'Reilly's repeat show for the laughs. It's funnier than The Daily Show!! I watch Keith at 8:00 because he speaks the truth

[johnie2xs]

Attrition will take care of the older ones. What the Rethugs need to do is not accede to the promotion of another level of Evangelical supremacists. They have to become more secular and promote the separation of Church and State, unless they prefer the Bedouin lifestyle.

As I once said to an old man who was screaming at a TV in a bar, a few years ago, as pictures of Denzel Washington and Halle Barry flashed across the screen, being touted for their Academy Award wins. He was saying N**er this and N**er that, saying they should return to Africa. I told him "the best thing about his attitude was that when he died, he'd take it with him".

Time is on our side.

[david in austin]

Fox viewers never change the channel in fear of facing TEH EBIL LIBURAWL MEDEUH TERNIN US GAI !!!

[brocko]

What about MSNBC's "Hardball" with Chris Matthews? He intimates how Michelle Obama is the perfect first lady because among other things, wait for it…she knows her place! What place would that be, Mr. Matthews?

[XrepugX]

The illiterates need 'news' spoonfed to them through TV. The rest of us read the news to figure it out for ourselves. All these numbers do is reinforce which party watches TV, considering their declining overall numbers.

-x

[jimrs6]

Actually, the difference is that only liberal dems can stand to watch MSNBC while FNC gets it viewership from equal split of Reps/Dems/­Independen­ts.

[XrepugX]

"FNC gets it viewership from equal split of Reps/Dems/­Independen­ts."

Thats such a laughably silly statement. I remember coming into the last election FNC had a poll (I read online) that put FNC viewer at a rediculously high rate, if memory serves around 68%, who would have voted for W again. Equal split Reps/Dems/­Independen­ts my a$s. The words escape me when trying to describe how fundamentally reta rded your claim is.

[XrepugX]

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/12452/

"So if you had to vote today, who would you vote for. Barack Obama, 2.5%. John McCain, 20%. George W. Bush, 76.5%."

That was just the glenn beck poll in 2008, there was a more comprehensive poll done that I have located yet. Not worth more than 5 minutes of my effort.