Fox News Regains Top Spot in Weekly Cable Primetime Ratings Race

By R. Thomas Umstead
published

After a six-week absence, Fox News returned to the top spot of the weekly cable primetime ratings charts, according to Nielsen.

Fox News averaged 2.2 million viewers for the week of May 28-June 3 to top all cable networks, including last week’s winner ESPN, according to Nielsen.

TNT, who along with ESPN finished as the most watched cable networks in primetime for the last six weeks – mostly due to their respective NBA Playoffs coverage – came in second last week with 2.1 million viewers. HGTV was third with 1.5 million, followed by MSNBC with 1.4 million and USA Network with 1.2 million.

A&E Network, TBS and NBC Sports Network (all tied with 1.1 million viewers), Investigation Discovery (1 million) and Hallmark Channel (931,000) rounded out the top 10 most watched networks for the week.

Fox News topped the charts on a 24-hour basis for the 21 consecutive week, followed by Nickelodeon, TNT, HGTV and MSNBC, according to Nielsen.

R. Thomas Umstead
R. Thomas Umstead

R. Thomas Umstead serves as senior content producer, programming for Multichannel News, Broadcasting + Cable and Next TV. During his more than 30-year career as a print and online journalist, Umstead has written articles on a variety of subjects ranging from TV technology, marketing and sports production to content distribution and development. He has provided expert commentary on television issues and trends for such TV, print, radio and streaming outlets as Fox News, CNBC, the Today show, USA Today, The New York Times and National Public Radio. Umstead has also filmed, produced and edited more than 100 original video interviews, profiles and news reports featuring key cable television executives as well as entertainers and celebrity personalities.