Half way through the month of April, CNN is in fourth place among the four cable news channels in prime time (8-11pmET) in the A25-54 demo. Sister network HLN is in third place thanks to a strong prime time performance led by Nancy Grace. Campbell Brown‘s maternity leave fill-in Roland Martin has not performed well at 8pm. One night last week, Martin drew just 150K A25-54 demo viewers. Five times as many watched The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News.

A weak 8pm show isn’t helping CNN’s Larry King Live at 9pmET. In the first 10 weekdays of the month, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has beaten King six times.

First place Fox News has more demo viewers than MSNBC and CNN combined. The Nielsen April ratings month ends April 26.

• March 30 – April 10 prime time average in A25-54 viewers:

Fox News: 631,000
MSNBC: 304,300
HLN: 267,800
CNN: 258,600

• Earlier: CNN finishes third in prime time demo for month of March…

• Related: Multichannel News talks with CNN EVP and COO of Ad Sales Greg D’Alba about how the network is selling itself to advertisers and about programming additions ahead…

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The New York Times’ Brian Stelter takes a look at the advertising impact after, “MSNBC cemented its identity as a channel for a liberal audience.”

But Stelter found advertisers weren’t looking at that angle. “So far, they say the partisanship of the programming matters less than the ratings the shows can generate,” he writes.

And on that front, it is Fox News that has dominated. “In 2007, for the first time, Fox News raised more advertising revenue than the combination of CNN and the sister network Headline News, according to the research firm SNL Kagan,” writes Stelter. “It estimates that Fox earned $460 million in advertising last year, while CNN and Headline News netted $434 million and MSNBC earned $137 million.”

Stelter quotes CNN’s COO of ad sales Greg D’Alba, who says he, “pitches the reach of CNN’s platforms rather than the opinions, or lack thereof, on the programs.” That, despite the Pew study out this week which shows FNC has the most balanced audience.