Weekly Cable Ratings: Fox News Opens April in First Place

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TBS, ESPN ride March Madness coverage to top five primetime finishes

ESPN's Stanford-Arizona telecast
ESPN's Stanford-Arizona women's college basketball finals telecast drew more than 4 million viewers (Image credit: ESPN)

Fox News dominated the primetime and total day ratings charts during the first week of April, according to Nielsen.

Fox News averaged 2.1 million viewers for the week of March 29 to April 4, easily besting fellow cable news network MSNBC and TBS -- which carried late round coverage of the men’s college basketball tournament -- both of which tied for second place with 1.6 million viewers, said Nielsen. 

ESPN, bolstered by the more than 4 million viewers who tuned into its April 4 Stanford-Arizona women’s college basketball tournament finals telecast, pulled into fourth place with 1.2 million viewers, followed by HGTV with 1.1 million watchers.

Also Read: TV By the Numbers: The March Madness Continues, MLB Pops Up

CNN fell to sixth place with 1 million viewers, followed by History (948,000 viewers), Hallmark Channel (833,000), Food Network (766,000), and TLC (755,000). 

On a total day basis, Fox News led all networks with an average of 1.1 million viewers, followed by MSNBC (1 million viewers), CNN (816,000), HGTV (649,000) and ESPN (577,000).

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.