Fox News Tops Weekly Cable Ratings Charts

By R. Thomas Umstead
published

Fox News Channel dominated the weekly cable ratings primetime and total day charts, paced by its coverage of President Trump’s Jan. 30 State of the Union address, according to Nielsen. 

Fox News averaged 3.8 million viewers during the period of Jan. 29 to Feb. 4 to top all cable networks, according to Nielsen. The cable news network’s performance was bolstered by the 11.7 million viewers Fox News averaged for SOTU coverage. 

MSNBC was second in primetime during the week with 1.9 million viewers, followed by HGTV and USA Network’s 1.4 million viewers each, and History’s 1.2 million watchers. 

Fox News also beat out MSNBC on a total day basis, followed by Nickelodeon, Investigation Discovery and HGTV, said Nielsen.

R. Thomas Umstead
R. Thomas Umstead

R. Thomas Umstead serves as senior content producer, programming for Multichannel News, Broadcasting + Cable and Next TV. During his more than 30-year career as a print and online journalist, Umstead has written articles on a variety of subjects ranging from TV technology, marketing and sports production to content distribution and development. He has provided expert commentary on television issues and trends for such TV, print, radio and streaming outlets as Fox News, CNBC, the Today show, USA Today, The New York Times and National Public Radio. Umstead has also filmed, produced and edited more than 100 original video interviews, profiles and news reports featuring key cable television executives as well as entertainers and celebrity personalities.