Tuesday was truly super for Fox News: The cable news channel hauled in an average of 5 million total viewers last night per early Nielsen data, breaking its own cable news record for a primary night.
The “primary night” claim is the key qualifier here — that means actual debates don’t count. Super Tuesday 1 on March 1 averaged 4.9 million total viewers on FNC.
In the key 25-54 cable news demographic, FNC landed 1.3 million viewers. CNN won that one, with an average of 1.6 million.
Last night was what Fox News considers Super Tuesday 2, though some networks — including competitor CNN — referred to it as Super Tuesday 3, as the original Super Tuesday was two weeks earlier.
Fox News’ 8-11 p.m. ET coverage fell under its “America’s Election Headquarters” title, and was anchored by Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly.
Here’s the breakdown across cable news last night:
Fox News – 5 million total viewers/1.3 million in the 25-54 demo
CNN – 4.3 million total viewers/1.6 million in demo
MSNBC – 2.1 million total viewers/607,000 in demo