Fox News Channel dominated the month of August to finish its 14th straight month as the most-viewed network among all of cable, but rivals MSNBC and CNN showed significant growth during a wild month for news.
Fox News averaged 1.4 million total viewers, while Nickelodeon averaged 1.2 million to finish second among the total day category. MSNBC averaged a smidge over one million viewers to finish third, and CNN averaged 832,000 to finish fourth. Adult Swim, HGTV, Cartoon Network, Investigation Discovery, USA and Nick-at-Nite round out the Top 10.
While Fox News had the most viewers, MSNBC showed more growth and finished August up 55 percent compared to the same month in 2016. CNN grew 23 percent and Fox News finished up eight percent during the busy month that featured President Trump making news on a regular basis and the tragic events in Charlottesville.
Fox News was also the most watched network during primetime, averaging 2.2 million viewers from 8-11 p.m., while MSNBC finished second with an average of 1.8 million primetime viewers.
USA averaged 1.5 million to finished third, followed by HGTV and TBS, while CNN’s 1.2 million viewers ranked sixth among all of cable.
MSNBC grew 63 percent compared to last August, while CNN also showed significant growth during primetime, gaining 41 percent. Fox News went up six percent over the same time period.
Fox News beat MSNBC and CNN across the board in the key news demographic of adults age 25-54, averaging 303,000 demo total viewers and 466,000 during primetime. However, CNN was close and averaged 277,000 during total day and 418,000 from 8-11 p.m. MSNBC finished third in the demo, picking up 231,000 total demo viewers and 401,000 during primetime.
Fox News has now been the most-watched cable news network in both total day and primetime among total viewers for 188 consecutive months. Meanwhile, Fox Business Network, the sister of Fox News, averaged 194,000 business day viewers compared to 154,000 for rival CNBC. It marks the tenth month that Fox Business has topped CNBC in viewers while the stock market is open.
16 'Morning Joe' Trump Insults That Got Personal, From 'Schmuck' to 'Jackass' (Photos)
President Trump recently received a ton of criticism for sending out a pair of tweets about MSNBC's "Morning Joe" hosts “Psycho” Joe Scarborough and “low I.Q. Crazy” Mika Brzezinski.
“She was bleeding badly from a face-lift,” he wrote of an encounter with Brzezinski he claims he had in Florida weeks before his inauguration.
TheWrap
While nothing can justify the president mocking a woman's appearance, the "Morning Joe" duo have been attacking Trump for months.
Check out 16 recent times the MSNBC stars said something that Trump could have taken personally.
MSNBC
They compared him to Kim Jong-un
“This is unprecedented, to have a president who behaves this way,” Brzezinski said on June 23. “It does feel like a developing dictatorship."
Guest Donny Deutsch unloaded on Trump's appearance
Deutsch defended Brzezinski on June 30 following Donald Trump’s attacks on her, calling the president “physically disgusting to look at.”
Deutsch continued: “Enough is enough with this disgusting vulgar man and to talk about women that way, and the irony is you physically look like you do, beyond the stupidity of it. You are a pig."
Brzezinski said what Bill Clinton was to sex, Trump is to "decency"
"What Bill Clinton did to the issue of sex to an entire generation, I believe this president is doing on issues of decency, on issues of conspiracy theories, on issues of fake news," Brzezinski said in June 15. "I think it's that simple and we're desensitized if we even argue it."
"If the president seems delusional about his accomplishments, you can point no further than that room," Brzezinski said in June 14. "There are no real men in the inner circle of the White House... none at all."
After Trump staffers praised the president during a cabinet meeting, Scarborough said on June 13 it “was the most sick, shameful, pathetic, un-American, autocratic display.”
He continued: “I will tell you if I were ever in meeting and people did that to me, I would say shut up and I would fire you.”
Brzezinski called President Trump a “narcissist” and said it’s possible that he’s “mentally ill in a way” on June 8.
She continued: “I said it months ago… he’s not well. At the very least he’s not well and he’s so narcissistic that he does not believe the rules apply to him."
“Donald Trump, again, being a schmuck, thinking he can buy people’s integrity by inviting them over to the White House and wowing them,” Scarborough said on June 7 when discussing a dinner party at the White House. “That’s how he thinks. I know that first hand.”
Scarborough said Trump “is not a sane, rational human being”
“If any CEO, in a Fortune 500 company, was behaving this way, he or she would be removed immediately… they would take him out, he would have psychiatric evaluation and he would no longer be the CEO,” Scarborough said on June 6.
Scarborough blasted “President Bannon” on June 2 for the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Accord on climate change — using the trolling phrase seven times in half a minute.
“Time magazine was right: Steve Bannon is the president of the United States,” the MSNBC host said, before launching into a 30-second monologue referencing “President Bannon” repeatedly.
The morning show played audio of Press Secretary Sean Spicer telling reporters during an off-camera gaggle that Trump’s “covfefe” tweet wasn’t a typo and Americans shouldn’t be concerned.
Brzezinski set up her fiancé, “You said… it’s like a kid pooping their pants and then saying, ‘I meant to do that.”
“Well yes. It would be like somebody pooping their pants and then people looking at it and saying ‘oh that’s modern art don’t you understand,'” Scarborough said on June 1.
Scarborough called Trump a “bumbling dope” on May 11 because of the way a meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister was handled.
“Looking at the front pages of the newspapers here… The Wall Street Journal also, you look, of course, at pictures. The shameful picture where the United States press corps was kept out but the Russians were allowed in,” Scarborough said while holding up the paper.
Scarborough slammed Trump on March 31, saying that Russians are lucky that POTUS is “stupid enough” to pick up their fake news.
“We’re obsessed on how the Russians have hacked, how the Russians have tried to impact this, how the Russians have tried to impact the White House,” Scarborough said. “We’re really just playing into their hands.”
MSNBC stars Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski attack the president on a daily basis
President Trump recently received a ton of criticism for sending out a pair of tweets about MSNBC's "Morning Joe" hosts “Psycho” Joe Scarborough and “low I.Q. Crazy” Mika Brzezinski.
“She was bleeding badly from a face-lift,” he wrote of an encounter with Brzezinski he claims he had in Florida weeks before his inauguration.