Middle East Crisis: Week of July 17 Ratings

“The 20 most-watched cable news programs last week, when the escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah produced the biggest headlines, were on the Fox News Channel,” TV Week reports.

FNC’s primetime viewership last week, 1.9 million, was down “3 percent from the comparable week in 2005. But in the 25-54 demo, Fox was up 13 percent year to year with 586,000 viewers in prime time.”

In terms of viewership spike, CNN is the biggest ratings winner of the war. “The Israeli attack on Lebanon drove CNN’s total primetime audience 51% compared to the same week last year, to an average of 1 million viewers, while the Nielsen Media scores among the 25-54 news demo soared 97% to 364,000,” Broadcasting & Cable says. But Fox News Channel’s audience is almost twice the size of CNN’s. Via TV Week, here are the weekly averages:

25-54 demographic:

Total day: FNC: 398,000 | CNN: 284,000 | MSNBC: 123,000

Prime: FNC: 586,000 | CNN: 364,000 | MSNBC: 161,000

Total viewers:

Total day: FNC: 1,200,000 | CNN: 685,000 | MSNBC: 280,000

Prime: FNC: 1,900,000 | CNN: 1,010,000 | MSNBC: 386,000

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