The political season continues to be very good to CNN, which will officially announce on Tuesday that for the first time since 2001, it managed to beat the Fox News Channel in prime time for one quarter of the year in the category of news viewers most desirable to advertisers, according to Nielsen. Thanks to its debate coverage and heavy focus on the presidential primaries, CNN’s ratings in prime time for viewers 25 to 54 were up 90 percent, to an average of 453,000 for the first quarter of 2008. That was enough to edge past the perennial leader, Fox, which had 438,000 viewers, up 12 percent from last year. MSNBC also had a strong quarter in prime time, growing 68 percent to 329,000 viewers.
In the first quarter, Fox News Channel was the most-watched channel in all of cable news, winning both the today day and prime time categories in Total Viewers. This marks the 25th consecutive quarter in which FNC has won these categories.
Fox & Friends (7-9amET) and America's Newsroom (9-11amET) saw double-digit gains in viewership compared to Q1 2007; up 25% and 23% respectively.
During prime time (Mon-Sun, 8p-11p), FNC was up 13% from the first quarter 2007. In total day, FNC was up 11%.
