April 1, 2009 Fox Still Leads Prime Time By BRIAN STELTER NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/business/media/01cable.html?_r=1&ref=business&pagewanted=print During the three most lucrative and widely watched hours of TV, the cable news channel MSNBC outranked CNN for the first time ever in March. Viewers continued to flock to the TV versions of the op-ed page in the evenings, according to Nielsen Media Research ratings released Tuesday, posing trouble for CNN, which placed third for the month in weekday prime time from 8 to 11 p.m. Fox News Channel, the longtime No. 1 cable news operation and a unit of the News Corporation, has extended its lead over CNN and MSNBC in recent months. In March, “The O’Reilly Factor,” Fox’s 8 p.m. program, reached a milestone of 100 consecutive months as the most popular program on cable news. Mr. O’Reilly’s wide audience — an average of 3.4 million each night — reaffirms the popularity of fiercely partisan programs on cable, especially in the evening. During the prime time hours of 8 to 11 p.m., when the right-leaning Mr. O’Reilly and the stalwart conservative Sean Hannity are hosts of shows on Fox News, the network is the second-most-popular channel on ad-supported cable, with an average of 2.2 million viewers. Only the drama-oriented channel USA averages more viewers. At the same time, CNN, which emphasizes a nonpartisan approach in prime time, is ceding some ground to MSNBC, a unit of NBC Universal. With its two left-leaning hosts, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, MSNBC attracted 1.14 million viewers in weekday prime time in March, edging out CNN for the first time. CNN, a unit of Time Warner, had 1.11 million viewers in prime time in March. MSNBC has already outrated CNN in prime time among 25-to 54-year-olds, a crucial demographic to advertisers. Of the three hours that make up CNN’s prime time, two of them — 8 p.m., which is anchored by Campbell Brown, and 10 p.m., which is anchored by Anderson Cooper — lost 9 percent of their audience in the first quarter of the year, compared with the same quarter in 2008. The 9 p.m. hour, hosted by Larry King, was up 9 percent. -- ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 Mail: antunes at uh dot edu *********************************** * POST TO MEDIANEWS@ETSKYWARN.NET * *********************************** Medianews mailing list Medianews@etskywarn.net http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
