CNN Upsets Fox News For Ratings Win In Most-Watched Super Tuesday Ever

One more upset from Super Tuesday: It looks like CNN scored a rare victory over Fox News. And the real losers: Every broadcast network besides Fox, which didn't devote any national air time to the election.
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One more upset from Super Tuesday: It looks like CNN scored a rare victory over Fox News. Overnight Nielsen ratings peg CNN's average hourly prime time audience at 3.6 million, narrowly edging Fox's 3.5 million. Also-ran MSNBC drew an average of 2.1 million.

The combined ratings for all three networks set a Super Tuesday record &mdash not a shock, given the number of races and their national scope.

The real losers: Every broadcast network besides Fox, which didn't devote any national air time to the election. The other networks grudgingly turned over some of their night to political coverage, and paid a price: The more coverage they aired, the lower their ratings. Fox, which aired "American Idol" and "House," blew away ABC, NBC and CBS, which turned over parts of primetime to their news departments.

ABC, which aired five hours of political coverage came in last, behind CBS, which aired two, and NBC, which aired a single hour, following after a two-hour episode of "Biggest Loser."

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