The FOX/ABC Ratings War

George Stephanopoulos has a reason to smile today. The final Nielsen numbers for this past Sunday have him beating back Fox in 12 of the top 15 markets, and tying in one.

You see it’s been a months-long and, given the ferocity of the ratings wars, rather bitter rivalry between Fox News Sunday and ABC’s “This Week.” Fox has been trumpeting how Fox beat ABC twice in the four weeks of February sweeps here in the nation’s capital, where the two shows go head-to-head at 9 a.m.

A broader look at this Sunday’s numbers show that Stephanopoulos is actually rather solid. In the top five markets, in fact, Stephanopoulos handily beat Chris Wallace, with Fox coming in fourth in all five markets while ABC took four second place finishes (behind NBC’s ‘Meet’ and ahead of CBS’ ‘Face’) and won Los Angeles (the #2 market) outright.

Fox only beat ABC in D.C. (the #8 market) and Tampa (#13).

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