Fox News Channel upended football-fueled ESPN to finish first in primetime last week as the fall television season begins to ramp up.
Fox News averaged 2.1 million viewers in primetime during the week of September 19-25 to top all cable networks and end ESPN’s three-week winning streak, according to Nielsen. The sports network finished second with an average of 2 million viewers, followed by MSNBC with 1.2 million viewers. HGTV was fourth with 821,000 viewers and USA Network finished fifth with 707,000 watchers.
Rounding out the top 10 list of most watched cable networks in primetime were INSP (683,000 viewers), Hallmark Channel (680,000), CNN (674,000), TLC (643,000) and Food Network (622,000).
Fox News continued its dominance of the total-day charts by finishing first for the 38th straight week, followed by MSNBC (844,000 viewers), ESPN (773,000), CNN (603,000) and HGTV (449,000), according to Nielsen. ■
