Fox News Tops For Fort Hood Breaking News Coverage Ratings

When news of the shooting at Fort Hood broke Tuesday, Fox News is where the majority of Americans turned for breaking news coverage.

Over the course of the breaking news, from 3PM-12AM, Fox News averaged 3.039 million total viewers, more than CNN (1.576 million), MSNBC (820,000), and HLN (428,000) combined. In the Adults 25-54 demographic over that time period, Fox News averaged 837,000 viewers, more than CNN's 471,000, MSNBC's 248,000, and HLN's 177,000.

In primetime, Fox News averaged 3.765 million total viewers to CNN's 2.024 million, MSNBC's 1.101 million, and HLN's 621,000. In the primetime A25-54 demo, Fox Nes averaged 1.147 million total viewers to CNN's 596,000, MSNBC's 308,000, and HLN's 221,000.

The breaking news brought several ratings records for Fox News as well: "Special Report with Bret Baier" (3.351 million), "Fox Report with Shepard Smith" (3.966 million) and "The O'Reilly Factor" all drew their largest total viewer audiences of 2009.

Comments

[Clayton139]

http://blog.shankbone.org/2009/03/24/shepard-smith-told-me-he-is-gay-so-why-are-you-still-at-fox-news/

http://blog.shankbone.org/2009/07/28/outing-gay-celebrities/

http://blog.shankbone.org/2009/05/14/will-governor-charlie-crists-homosexuality-hurt-his-senate-run-in-florida/

[Clayton139]

Shepard Smith needs to come out of the Closet if he is GAY...
This is NOT doing the LGBT community any good...
This being TRUE?!! You are SELLING your Gay Community out...!
Just like a lot of Washington DC Republicans are !

[jordan327]

More than msnbc, cnn, hln COMBINED. Not bad for a , what do liberals say, entertainment channel...HA!

[politisophical]

its kinda like the "theory of evolution" and "geology" the bible says its false but billions tune in every Sunday .... the facts tell us that these sciences are true, the facts also tell us that fox news is not news...

just because millions tune in does not mean its a great source of news

[Beantownbadboy]

What's the alternative, Tamron Hall or the amateurs at CNN. I don't care for the way they do business but Smith is the best on the air at that time slot. Hey, MSNBC sympathizers, get over it.

[AnneMarie27]

I don't like Fox. I do like Shep. But what would Fox be without him?

[AnnfromCA]

Shep had, by far, the best interviews of people involved. I tried the other programs and quickly went back to Fox and Shep.

[Shelly1970]

Agreed. Shep is the spec of sanity in the Fox ocean of propaganda.

[betty22]

CNN had this report too..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0hiw8iXdMM

[betty22]

CNN also has this report too..about shooting. do you find this well...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0hiw8iXdMM

[luvapetadopt]

Shep Smith was on The View last week and he stated that he thought politics was boring and he enjoyed more delivering real news. He is the only anchor on that station that I find to be a real news guy.

[AnnfromCA]

You could tell. He was excellent with this story.

[yankees]

Of course they are because they have the balls to call this act what it really is, Muslim Terrorism. Granted he may have acted alone but reports are coming out now that proves how fanatical he was.
The Lame Stream Media and these comments are just trying to make the Terrorist the victim and couldn't care less about the dead.

[AnnfromCA]

Fox did no such thing. This was the only program that was NOT reporting nonsense. Shep absolutely was professional, objective and did an outstanding job.

[ConservativeFrank]

Boom on point.

[pjburke]

Only the functionally illiterate and the propaganda-damaged EVER choose Faux... for ANY reason. Faux can't even match a stopped clock's average of being right twice a day... they're never right, about anything... and that's deliberate.

Besides, the 'ratings' numbers are bogus... most every empty no-tell motel lobby's TV is tuned to Faux (likewise at bars, airports, healthclubs, barber shops, etc), because they're paid to keep it tuned there, and then those unwatched TV's are counted in the so-called "ratings."

"Tops," indeed. Phooey.

[OdinsEye]

Actually regarding breaking news Fox is often faster and more accurate than CNN. I have monitored both for several breaking news events and Fox actually does pretty good. They also use many of the same sources (AP, UPI, Reuters, etc.) as CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, and other outlets. Their political commentary, on the other hand, well... actually even CNN's commentary $uck$, so I don't pay attention to any of those shows regardless of network.

[daultman463]

Where to begin with you pj.I want to call you a liberal snob but i won`t., i`m in a good mood this morning.Your reply is one of the reason i will never become liberal.You think anyone who doesn`t agree with you or in this case watches a different network is beneath you, how pathetic is that.Then then use the old fox news lies about everything theory which never seem to get backed up on here.And please tell me your smart enough to know that tv`s being on in stores and lobbies don`t count in the ratings,please tell me you knew that pj.

[constitutional 1]

hater

[daultman463]

Who`s a hater constitutional?

[BOin08]

MSNBC anchors simply do not resonate with viewers as credible news sources. MSNBC is more focused on excusing Major Nidal Malik Hasan's motivations-Post Traumatic Stress Syndrom-fueld not by actual combat-but STORIES of combat-and anti-Muslim discrimination within the Army. I came away from Rachel Madddows show with the impression that it was the Army's fault the Hassan went rogue.

[StewartIII]

ChickaBOOMer: Fort Hood Cable News Numbers
http://chickaboomer.blogspot.com/2009/11/fort-hood-cable-news-numbers.html

[OdinsEye]

I monitored what was happening on both Fox and CNN and I have to say, Fox was faster and more accurate than CNN at almost every aspect.

[fanofgrendel]

This kind of makes the White House attack on Fox that they are not a real news network look a little bit silly. Obviously the majority of the cable watchers the day of the Fort Hood massacre think otherwise given their channel choices.