Election Night 2010 Ratings: ABC News Gets 'Dancing' Boost, But Fox News Beats Broadcast Networks

"Dancing with the Stars" boosted ABC News to the top of the broadcast election night ratings, but it still wasn't enough to out-rate cable news juggernaut Fox News.

ABC's coverage, which was anchored by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos, drew 6.790 million viewers (from 9:30-10:55 PM), with 2.643 million in the A25-54 demographic. NBC's coverage, anchored by Brian Williams, came a close second, with 6.362 million total viewers (from 9-10:54 PM), though the network topped ABC in the demo with 2.947 million A25-54 viewers. CBS's coverage, anchored by Katie Couric, placed third with 5.862 million total viewers (from 10-11 PM) and 2.188 million A25-54 viewers.

Of course, ABC was boosted by its lead-in, "Dancing with the Stars," which averaged almost 17 million viewers Tuesday night. From 9:30-10PM Tuesday, ABC's election coverage averaged 9.1 million total viewers. But when just the 10PM hour — when all three networks were competing head-to-head — is taken into consideration, the network was actually beaten by both NBC and CBS.

During the 10PM hour, NBC took first place among broadcast networks, averaging 6.268 million total viewers to CBS' 5.865 million and ABC's 5.525 million.

That said, all the networks were beaten by Fox News, which averaged 6.957 million total viewers across its primetime coverage, and 6.935 million total viewers in the 10PM hour.

Comments

[Djjeffe]

08:39 PM on 11/10/2010

Lets be clear about one thing. Fox is nothing more than a right wing propaganda machine watched by right leaning people. The other news channels are not. NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC are the other options so people who do not want to watch Fox have 5 choices. If you add up the numbers of the other five Fox gets killed. What are they bragging about?

[Edward Standley]

10:34 PM on 11/08/2010

Weeoooo! Dancing With the Stars and Fox News! Now thats ennertainment. Who the hayull needs that pointy-headed PBS?

[chief wheelhouse]

06:28 PM on 11/08/2010

less than 1/2 of one percent of the population is interested in fox news. less for the others. how can we make sound decisions while choking down the putrid tripe of ratings based theatrical journalism. i'm amazed the country functions at all.

[Sassys]

03:12 AM on 11/08/2010

Dancing with the stars beat everyone...what a very sad state of affairs we are in.

[Mirza Halilovic]

09:21 PM on 11/07/2010

So what this tells me is that my lib friends were out partying or getting laid while the FOX audience was foaming at the mouth and fapping to Megyn Kelly

[CarolinaYankee]

10:24 AM on 11/07/2010

Just proves everyone loves a trainwreck. Tuning in to see if Brisket finally trips and falls or something, who cares.

[Dash Riprock]

08:09 AM on 11/07/2010

Ok so 7 million viewers tuned into Fox. That is a fraction of what the networks used to get, and it points to the divisions in the country. Fox viewers are white conservatives who get their news from Fox pretty much exclusively. That's a pretty specific segment.

[jdrourke]

08:16 PM on 11/06/2010

So ABC needed Dancing with the (C list) Stars to help its election ratings...?

O-kay.

http://jdrourke.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/dear-dancing-with-the-stars/

And Fox *News once again was the most viewed, despite its mouthpieces insistence that they're not mainstream.

Again, o-kay.

http://jdrourke.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/thats-quite-enough-liberal-media/

[clearpepsi]

07:47 PM on 11/05/2010

hmm.. fox wins even though it didn't get the best ratings? - sounds like culture of failure stuff to me.

[Fuentes]

02:42 PM on 11/05/2010

Fox-lite

[Fuentes]

02:42 PM on 11/05/2010

ABC is Fix-lite.

[moonchild62]

01:50 PM on 11/05/2010

Oh. My. God.
That is ridiculous!

[KHAAANNN]

12:09 PM on 11/05/2010

Anyone who thinks DWTS has not been rigged to make sure frumppy-Palin wins is dreaming.
Same thing over on FAUX News.

[tnlcallen]

04:14 PM on 11/05/2010

That's an odd conspiracy theory

[pilotsknob]

11:06 AM on 11/05/2010

Looks like a nation of sheep are following the sly Fox to the slaughterhouse.

[hello world]

10:57 AM on 11/05/2010

Surprise, surprise... FOX News is #1... God forbid republicans try to use their brain and think for themselves. What a bunch of sheep.

[Sassys]

03:24 AM on 11/08/2010

@ hello world..F/F don't let the opinions of the sandiegoconservative bother you ...some conservatives don't know they are on a liberal site...they come here looking for opportunities to sneer at sanity. Please continue to post and ignore the less brainy bunch aka sandiegoconservative.