In the 25-54 demographic this month, O’Reilly was #1 with 454,000 viewers, way more than anyone else. Shep was #2, H&C was #3, Hume was #4, and Fox & Friends was #5.

FNC’s least popular programs among young viewers (Fox News Live, DaySide and The Big Story) still ranked higher than all but one of CNN’s shows.

CNN’s top program, Larry King Live, ranked tenth, with 228,000 demo viewers. Anderson Cooper was second with 207,000 and Lou Dobbs was third with 167,000.

Interestingly, Countdown averaged 163,000 and MSNBC Investigates averaged 161,000 viewers for the month, beating the rest of CNN’s schedule. Here are all the demo #’s:

> Feb. 2006 Ranker: 25-54 demo (PDF)

Fox News Channel had the top nine programs on cable news in February. The O’Reilly Factor was #1, Special Report was #2, The Fox Report was #3, Hannity & Colmes was #4 and On The Record was #5. CNN’s Larry King slipped to tenth with 901,000 viewers — the program’s smallest numbers since May 2001.

Lou Dobbs had the #2 show on CNN, with 689,000 viewers. Anderson Cooper moved to third place with 624,000. Fox & Friends First, at 6am, beat Paula Zahn and Nancy Grace at 8pm.

Hardball and Countdown tied for the title of MSNBC’s top show, with 400,000 viewers each. Analyze ALL the numbers using the ranker:

> Feb. 2006 Ranker: Total viewers (PDF)

> Compare to Feb. 2005

Fox News had the third most-viewed program on all of cable this month. FNC’s coverage of the State of the Union on Jan. 31 averaged 6,470,000 viewers. (Jan. 31 is included in Nielsen’s statistical month.) According to B&C, the broadcast was beat by only two others: Nickolodeon’s President’s Day SpongeBob special and TNT’s East vs. West game…

This chart, provided by CNN, shows hourly cable news ratings from 3pm to midnight, in total viewers and the 25-54 demo, compared to the same month last year:

> Year-over-year comparison (PDF)

MSNBC beat CNN in the 25-54 demographic at 7 and 8pm in February, thanks in part to the Olympics. Chris Matthews topped Wolf Blitzer by 17,000 demo viewers at 7pm and Keith Olbermann beat Paula Zahn by 11,000 demo viewers at 8pm. Hardball was up 91 percent from Feb. 05, while CNN was up just 9 percent. Countdown was up 56 percent from Feb. 05, while CNN was down 1 percent.

25-54 demographic:

7pm: FNC: 365,000 / CNN: 159,000 / MSNBC: 176,000

8pm: FNC: 458,000 / CNN: 152,000 / MSNBC: 163,000

> Update: 6:40pm: “I might could follow your pretzel logic had the Olympics aired directly before the 7pm and 8pm blocks on MSNBC. They didn’t. And if the Olympics helped them so much, why didn’t they help Dan Abrams who aired directly following the games each day on MSNBC? While CNN might like to BELIEVE that’s why they lost in the key demo, I would suggest to you that the demo climb by MSNBC has been slowly building for quite awhile now. Let’s see what CNN says next month when the same holds true,” an e-mailer says…

> Update: 9:18pm: “MSNBC promoted the daylights out of its primetime coverage during the olympics. Hardball promos ran in every break. For some reason, MSNBC chose not to promote Abrams,” an e-mailer adds. But another one points out that MSNBC was up against the Olympics on CNBC at 7pm and on NBC at 8pm…

In its first year of Headline Prime, CNN Headline News doubled its primetime audience, according to ratings released by CNN today. The following numbers compare 02/23/04 to 02/18/05 vs. 02/21/05 to 02/17/06:

In its first year, HLN Prime averaged 424,000 total viewers, a 101% increase from 211,000 viewers the previous year. Viewership rose 80 percent in the 25-54 demo, from 84,000 to 151,000.

In the 8pm hour now occupied by Nancy Grace, HLN posted audience gains of 180 percent in P2+ (605,000) and 124 percent in the demo (184,000) compared to the year before (216,000 and 184,000 respectively).

ABC News anchor Elizabeth Vargas had an exclusive interview with President Bush today. A portion of the interview aired on World News Now, and the rest will air on World News Tonight and Nightline. Vargas asked:

When you look back on those days immediately following when Katrina struck, what moment do you think was the moment that you realized that the government was failing, especially the people of New Orleans?

And Bush replied: “When I saw TV reporters interviewing people who were screaming for help. It looked — the scenes looked chaotic and desperate. And I realized that our government was — could have done a better job of comforting people. A lot went right, by the way. But the chaotic scenes were very troubling. It just — it was very unsettling for me to realize our fellow citizens were in near-panic wondering where the help was.”

I wish Vargas had asked Bush when he saw the TV reporters interviewing desperate people. As Newsweek reported in September, Dan Bartlett created a DVD of the evening newscasts on Thursday, Sept. 2. Was that the first time the president saw the news reports — more than 72 hours after the levee breach?

“NBC News President Steve Capus announced Tuesday he is adding two vice presidents to his executive team,” TV Week reports.

Returning to NBC News as a VP is Doug Vaughan, who was a former Today supervising producer specializing in entertainment-related segments before he moved to Burbank. On The West Coast he became NBC Entertainment special programs VP, overseeing shows including ‘Christmas in Rockefeller Center,’ ‘Cher: The Farewell Tour’ and ‘Princess Diana: The Secret Tapes.’”

Also, Lloyd Siegel has been promoted from director of news partnerships to VP of news partnerships.” The press release says “Siegel is responsible for coordinating editorial and promotional service and support for more than 200 NBC stations and broadcast groups for network newscasts, MSNBC on cable, and MSNBC.com…”

Broadcasting & Cable recaps the monthly ratings: “The Olympics helped give ratings boosts to both of NBC’s cable networks for the month of February.

MSNBC was up 47% in news’ target demo, viewers 25-54, for total-day viewing of an average 116,000 viewers, and up 35% in the demo during prime, to 153,000 viewers.

CNBC was up 72% in total-day viewing to an average 81,000 viewers in the demo, and 37% in prime to an average 81,000 in the demo.” More…

P2+: NBC: 9,718,000 / ABC: 9,096,000 / CBS: 8,319,000

Homes: NBC: 6.7/13 / ABC: 6.3/12 / CBS: 5.8/11

25-54: NBC: 2.7 / ABC: 2.6 / CBS: 2.1