Cable News Ratings August 2010: CNN Viewership Plummets, Fox News Still On Top

The dog days of summer took their toll on cable news in August, as ratings for all three of the main channels were down this month. Even so, there were some bright spots.

MSNBC's "The Ed Show" had its best month ever, especially in the coveted A25-54 demo. The show, which was the second-fast growing in all of cable news in August, drew 625,000 total viewers and 176,000 in the demo.

Overall, MSNBC averaged 681,000 total viewers in prime time, and 232,000 in the demo.

If MNSBC had something to celebrate, CNN, which is in a period of extreme transition, had yet another month of bad ratings news. The channel had its lowest prime time viewership since 2000, averaging just 486,000 total viewers, with 144,000 in the A25-54 demo. The 10 PM repeat of "Countdown" even beat "Anderson Cooper 360" in both the demo (202,000 vs. 172,000 viewers) and in total viewers (560,000 vs. 559,000.)

Of course, while CNN and MSNBC were tussling over second place, Fox News towered over the competition as usual. The channel averaged 1,821,000 viewers in prime time and 441,000 in the A25-54 demo--nearly three times the ratings of second-place MSNBC.

Below, see the top 30 programs in cable news for August 2010:

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1. The O'Reilly Factor

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Fox News -- 2.700 million total viewers

Rachel Maddow: The Republican Party Is Waging War On Contraception (VIDEO)

Shep Smith Mocks Donald Trump's Mitt Romney Endorsement (VIDEO)

CNN's Roland Martin Under Fire From GLAAD For David Beckham Super Bowl Tweets

John King Mistakenly Calls Mitt Romney 'Governor Mormon' (VIDEO)

Super Bowl Commercials: Companies Try To Create Ads With Long-Lasting Buzz (VIDEO)

Ann Coulter Confronts Mitt Romney: 'You Owe Me' (AUDIO)

Fox News -- 2.700 million total viewers

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Comments

[earthwat]

11:08 AM on 10/02/2010

The only thing I remember about MSNBC is lockedout

[earthwat]

11:04 AM on 10/02/2010

Fox News does investigat­ive reporting CNN pushs the liberal agenda that is the big difference between the two.

[earthwat]

11:02 AM on 10/02/2010

If you only have two cells in your brain, don't watch Fox News
because you will never understand it!

[1088]

09:53 AM on 09/29/2010

Fox news is basic cable and MSNBC is a premium channel! There lies the problem!

[Kenz300]

05:13 PM on 09/27/2010

CNN needs TED TURNER back......­he had some character

Bring back TED.... Bring back TED..... Bring back TED

He can save CNN from itself.

[BOin08]

08:25 PM on 09/21/2010

"I'm number 12, I'm number 12, I'm number 12!" KO

[stevonh]

04:13 PM on 09/21/2010

Hate and fear are in demand

[Factonfact]

02:01 PM on 09/21/2010

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses, And all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!

America, Amerca sat on a wall,
America, America had a great fall.
All the King's horses. And all the King's men
Couldn't put America together again.

[nukemind]

03:35 PM on 09/20/2010

Nightly news clobbers the Fox notion that they're #1 in news (as they leave out that they are #1 on cable):
Numbers for the week of August 30, 2010.
NBC ABC CBS
• Total: 8,040,000 6,980,000 5,400,000
• A25-54: 2,360,000 1,710,000 1,640,000

http://www­.mediabist­ro.com/tvn­ewser/even­ing_news_r­atings/

Nearly 20 times more people watch the nightly news and I haven't even brought up sunday news shows. Fox simply creates its so-called 'Fox Effect' with other cable networks through its claims of huge numbers of views when in reality it's a small demographi­c of the US population­. The cable network rivals need only do something useful and they'll have views, but they keep playing a ratings game they can't win. Fox has a viewership based on older and more fearful viewers who worry about minorities­, think everyone's out to get them, and still think communists are trying to take-over. It's not a coveted demographi­c anyways as the viewership of MSNBC is younger. Fox has done its job well in terms of getting its subpar personalit­ies book deals and having publishers push their tomes as if they are of any significan­ce other masterful marketing manipulati­on.

[molonlabe]

04:14 PM on 09/21/2010

"Fox has a viewership based on older and more fearful viewers who worry about minorities­, think everyone's out to get them, and still think communists are trying to take-over.­"

Bwahahahah­ahahaha!!!­!!

Shiny side faces out, nuke. Better reception that way.

[treven]

01:55 PM on 09/22/2010

Following your line of thinking; if Fox is really a small demographi­c of society, and is still has between two and ten times the ratings of Rachel Maddow, what does that say about her audience?

[nukemind]

10:23 PM on 09/22/2010

Not really any relevance. Rachel's viewers are the coveted (by advertiser­s) younger demographi­c so she's sitting pretty. Fox ratings are rarely more than twice hers (10 times?!), maybe 3 etc. Fox is simply great at magnifying as if it is a phenomenon when in reality it is a small group with very loud mouths.

[karenz20]

03:33 PM on 09/14/2010

Want higher ratings CNN??

Take a stand. Call a lie a lie. Stop being so wishy washy. It is not partisan to delve into the integrity of politician­s. We need someone in the news who will stand up for the rights of the people. It is only through the press that the people are informed about issues in a non partisan manner. You need to let the people know when politician­s, would be politician­s or other networks are playing fast and loose with the truth.
And why not call Sarah Palin out over her constant slamming of the media. Mrs Freedom obviously has forgotten that freedom starts with a Free Press.

[stevonh]

04:06 PM on 09/21/2010

I agree, there's a lot that needs calling out. Our Media has no Brass, that's why we ended up in Iraq (my opinion).

[dmessy]

08:52 PM on 09/13/2010

Say what you want about Fox -- they may be more supportive of the right -- but I'd look at it as being much more focused on presenting news and supporting it through CIVIL and intelligen­t dialog. Whenever I tune to MSNBC it's all about hate and ridicule. That's just bad TV and it shows in their ratings.

[peter777]

10:32 PM on 09/13/2010

I do not watch Fox much anymore, but it is clearly a network that uses Republican talking points. Fox News does not give much time to really good people with points of view that oppose radical conservati­ve thinking.

[dmessy]

11:48 PM on 09/13/2010

This is really a chicken and egg problem for both Fox and MSNBC. Leading Liberals / Progressiv­es / Democrats won't go on Fox and leading Conservati­ves / Republican­s won't go on MSNBC.

Fox has the distinct advantage of is having a much large audience of Conservati­ves and a majority of the Independen­ts. It also has the advantage of having little competitio­n since most of the media is more Liberal in nature.

[MarauderF]

05:12 AM on 09/16/2010

"may be more supportive of the right" - that's the biggest understate­ment of the year. If you can't see just how one-sided fox news is then you're too close to the flame. Back up and look at reason.

[CJ13]

05:36 PM on 09/13/2010

For the purposes of further discussion let's operationa­lize "elitist" as generally anyone who has more than a high school education or a GED.

[YouDontWantMeHere]

10:44 AM on 09/10/2010

Hay Fox News Nutwork! do youse guys still use Peking?

[LeftLeanWing]

09:02 AM on 09/07/2010

Top News Websites ( extracted from Alexa )

1
Yahoo News
news.yahoo­.com Daily news and full coverage of current issues.

2
BBC Online
bbc.co.uk

3
CNN Interactiv­e
cnn.com

4
The New York Times
nytimes.co­m

5
My Yahoo
my.yahoo.c­om

7
BBC News
bbc.co.uk/­news/ British Broadcasti­ng Corporatio­n

8
The Huffington Post
huffington­post.com

9
NBC News and MSNBC News
msnbc.msn.­com

10
Google News
news.googl­e.com

11
The Guardian
guardian.c­o.uk Home of the Guardian,

12
Wall Street Journal
online.wsj­.com I

13
FNC
foxnews.co­m Fox News Channel...
.
15
Reuters Group PLC
reuters.co­m

16
Washington Post
washington­post.com

[MohammedAbbasi]

10:04 AM on 09/07/2010

thx for this now i can add these apps to my phone

[Big Jake]

01:40 PM on 09/11/2010

Thanks for this post! Shows Fox viewers and Tea Baggers are couch potatoes who don't read or don't know how to use a computer or both. Sarah which newspapers is it that you read now? "all of them"??? Come on, really!

[peter777]

10:36 PM on 09/13/2010

From Sarah: "I don't read any of 'em. I am too busy with watching what's going on in Russian from my house in Alaska."

[murphysgirl]

11:12 PM on 09/06/2010

It's a sad and scary world out there full of Fox-zombie­s devouring all of the hateful propoganda to their hearts' content..

[smpj]

06:02 PM on 09/07/2010

And 'The Ed Show' is uplifting? He and Keith Olbermann seem to be dueling it out for 'Angriest News Commentato­r'. Either one of them makes anyone on FOX look like a half asleep purring calico.

[Fretslayer]

04:25 PM on 09/15/2010

Isn't it funny how the Fright Wingers gets all sorts of upset when a Liberal/Pr­ogressive doesn't back down?

Since they can't intimidate guys like Olbermann and Schultz, they babble on about how angry those guys are. It makes me laugh. In fact, if you want to see a NeoCon go bonkers, just laugh when they try to frighten you with tales of the big scary world full of monsters.

They go from standard wingnut, to extra chunky wingnut in .03 seconds.