Opinion: Obama drives record Fox News ratings, bumps MSNBC by CNN
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
President Barack Obama may be obsessed with the critical coverage of Fox News, as often reported. But the cable news channel sure must love him.
Latest ratings out for the second quarter of 2009 show the top-rated FNC having one of the best quarters in its entire history with prime-time ratings jumping an astounding 34%, not all of them Obama fans. That 8-11 p.m. slot is crucial for viewers -- and ad dollars -- which includes Fox’s showcase ‘The O’Reilly Factor.’
Throughout the viewing day, Fox News did even better with its 1.2 million viewers, on average, more than doubling CNN’s 598,000 and more than tripling third-place trailer MSNBC’s average audience of 392,000.
Loyal Ticket readers will recall back in May White House official Kareem Dale revealed in a speech that MSNBC was the Obama administration’s favorite TV channel. (Also see C-SPAN video below, at the 1:51 mark.)
And that liberal affection seems to have rubbed off on Obama backers, helping the NBC outlet to barely squeak past CNN in weekday prime-time average audience, 946,000 to 939,000.
Our blogging colleague Scott Collins has more on these numbers over at Show Tracker.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Speaking of a growing audience, thousands have clicked here to register for Twitter alerts on each new Ticket item. Or you can follow us @latimestot