Fox News dominated Tuesday night’s ratings when networks had to juggle breaking news following the terrorist attacks in Brussels with “Western Tuesday” political coverage.
FNC finished No. 1 in prime time among both total viewers and in the key demographic of viewers age 25-54. The network averaged 3.55 million viewers from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET, beating the combined total of CNN (1.87 million) and MSNBC (1.32 million).
“The O’Reilly Factor” topped the night in viewers with 3.8 million, while “Hannity” was No. 1 in the demo with 833,000. Tuesday also marked Sean Hannity‘s highest-rated show of the year in both demo and total viewers.
The previous night saw all five remaining presidential candidates appear on CNN, while Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and John Kasich also appeared on Fox News.
CNN’s “The Final Five” special helped the network edge Fox News on Monday in the key demo during prime time. CNN averaged 594,000 viewers compared to 588,000 for Fox News. However, Hannity’s interview with Trump on Fox News averaged 597,000 demo viewers at 10 p.m. ET.
Fox News beat CNN on Monday in the other categories: prime time total viewers, total day viewers and the total day demo.
As for MSNBC, it finished well behind both Fox and CNN both nights in all categories. In fact, both Fox News and CNN doubled MSNBC’s viewers among the key demo on Tuesday’s massive news day.
Even the business networks are making waves, as Fox Business Network swept CNBC in Business Day in both total viewers and the key demo for the first time ever during yesterday’s breaking news.