MSNBC narrowly overtook its cable rival Fox News in primetime viewership last week, according to Nielsen—snapping a 120-week No. 1 primetime streak held by Fox News, following the sudden ouster of former Fox host Tucker Carlson last month and the ratings-driving indictment of former President Donald Trump last week.
Key Facts
From June 5 to June 11, MSNBC averaged a total of 1,374,000 primetime viewers, while Fox averaged 1,314,000, according to data released by Nielsen.
CNN ranked No. 3 in average primetime viewership last week, following far behind MSNBC and Fox with 728,000 viewers—as CNN
continues to struggle against its rivals.
Fox News maintained the top spot in average viewers across the entire day last week, followed by MSNBC and CNN—a position that it has held throughout the entirety of the year so far.
The top show on cable TV was Wednesday’s edition of Fox News talk show
The Five, with 2,765,000 viewers, followed by Monday’s
The Five at 2,645,000.
However, the Thursday edition of MSNBC’s
The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell ranked No. 3 last week at 2,608,000 average viewers, likely boosted by an appearance by the network’s Rachel Maddow soon after the indictment was reported, beating Fox News’
The Ingraham Angle in the same time slot by more than 300,000 viewers.
Several other MSNBC shows challenged Fox News’ dominance in the 24 hours after Trump’s indictment:
Alex Wagner Tonight secured 2,530,000 viewers on Thursday at 9 p.m., beating the 2,304,000 earned by
Hannity on Fox News at the same time.
Key Background
The slip from Fox News comes after the network began to experience decreasing
viewership numbers after severing ties with former primetime host Tucker Carlson. Carlson has since moved on to an independent pre-recorded show that has so far
uploaded three episodes to Twitter. Carlson—previously one of cable television’s top-rated hosts—departed from Fox News in April for reasons not explicitly made clear by the cable network. However, Carlson’s exit occurred after publicly documented tension between him and his former network, including a string of controversial
text discovered through a defamation suit against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems, which reportedly showed Carlson calling a Fox executive the c-word and musing about how “white men fight.” The suit cost Fox News $787.5 million to settle.
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