Cable Ratings: Rachel Maddow Posts Best Week Since 2008 as Fox News Dominates

Fox News has been No. 1 in basic cable for five straight weeks

Fox News finished the week of Feb 13-18 as the most-watched network among all of basic cable in both total viewers and prime-time viewers, marking the fifth-straight week that FNC has won both categories.

Fox News averaged 2.7 million prime-time viewers to beat TNT, which averaged 1.99 million.

MSNBC finished third with 1.58 million prime-time viewers thanks to the most-watched week ever for “The Rachel Maddow Show” since October 2008.

Maddow has been on a serious roll lately, averaging over 2 million viewers every night since President Trump’s inauguration. She averaged 2.6 million viewers leading up to the ’08 election.

HGTV and USA round out the top five most-watched networks from 8-11 p.m. ET. MSNBC is now the fastest growing cable network over 2016 among all cable network after its big week. However, Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” beat Maddow in the 9 p.m. ET hour despite MSNBC’s big week.

Among total day viewers, Fox News averaged 1.73 million sets of eyeballs to beat Nickelodeon’s 1.1 million. Cable news rivals CNN and MSNBC finished third and fourth, respectively, despite failing to average over one million viewers. HGTV finished fifth in the total viewers category, averaging 865,000.

“The O’Reilly Factor” notched four of the top 10 cable telecasts in total viewers and Fox News programs made up 18 of the top 30 telecasts in total viewers, including various episodes of “Americas News HQ,” “Happening Now,” “The Five,” “Special Report with Bret Baier,” “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and “Hannity.”

Fox News’ sister station isn’t doing too shabby either.

Fox Business Network was the most-watched business network in total day viewers for a fifth consecutive week and beat CNBC in both business day viewers and the key demo. This is FBN’s first weekly sweep in 2017 and the third time ever the network has topped CNBC in both viewers and demo for an entire week.

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