Fox News Channel opened September on top of both the primetime and total day cable charts, with ESPN hot on its heels as football season kicks off.
Fox News averaged 1.7 million viewers for the week of August 28 to September 3 to top all cable networks for the 10th straight week, according to Nielsen numbers supplied by Fox News. ESPN, bolstered by the first weekend of the college football season, finished in a tie for second place with MSNBC, with both networks averaging 1.3 million viewers.
HGTV was a distant fourth for the week with 859,000 viewers, followed by USA Network’s 834,000 viewers. Hallmark Channel was sixth with 710,000 viewers, followed by INSP (668,000 viewers), ESPN2 (649,000), TLC (617,000) and CNN (609,000).
On a total-day basis, Fox News placed first for the 35th consecutive week with an average of 1 million viewers. The network’s numbers were helped by its August 30 early morning (12 am to 5 am) simulcast of sister cable network Fox Weather's coverage of Hurricane Idalia, which drew nearly 500,000 viewers, according to Fox News.
MSNBC finished second with 860,000 viewers, followed by ESPN (622,000 viewers), CNN (515,000) and HGTV (453,000), Nielsen reported.
