Iowa Caucus Ratings: Fox News Wins By A Landslide, But CNN Creates The Viral Hits

by Nando Di Fino | 5:20 pm, January 4th, 2012

» 9 comments

The never-ending coverage of the Iowa Caucus results reached well into “wee hour” territory on early Wednesday morning, inadvertently creating some of the most enjoyable election coverage in recent memory. Ed Schultz praised Rick Santorum on MSNBC (and Al Sharpton referred to Mitt Romney as “Willard”), while CNN’s cast of hundreds got loopy late, and made two unwitting stars out of Iowans Edith Pfeffer and Carolyn Talett.

While CNN and MSNBC provided most of the memorable moments, it was Fox News that ended up victorious in the ratings for the first night of 2012 caucus/primary coverage, pulling in an impressive 2,630,000 total viewers (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.) to CNN’s 1,310,366 and MSNBC’s 1,195,230.

In the late-night block (11 p.m. to 3 a.m.), Fox News attracted 1,820,000 viewers to CNN’s 839,000, and MSNBC’s 693,000. And FNC ruled the key 25-54 year-old demographics across the board, as well.

But now that viewers have had a chance to sample all three networks and get a feel for what to expect, don’t be surprised if CNN — which despite some technical gaffes, received positive acclaim for its coverage (both serious and the goofy) — sees a boost next Tuesday for its analysis of the New Hampshire primaries. After all, they created four of our five “top moments” from the coverage (and we watched all of it, on every channel), and Edith’s name actually trended on Twitter today.

In a scheduling note, the regular cable news ratings reports will return on Thursday. So… get excited.

CNN, fox news, msnbc, Ratings

12voltman1

Big surprise
Anonymous

No surprise since most Americans want to hear the entire story along with both sides!!! While MessNothingButCrap, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, continue to cover for this incompetent and corrupt POTUS!!
Anonymous

MSNBC was a joke, as usual.
CNN was too meta, they wanted to explain everything they did and the little names they gave it and talked about themselves a lot, trying to show what a good time they were having.
As much as I hate to say it Fox was the most professional.

They deserve the win.
Anonymous

Wow, another win for FOX. I did not see that coming.
AMP2020

I guess Fox viewers are just more loyal as CNN & MSNBC seem to always get huge spikes during these big events.

Fox was boring last night though. It was nice watching the CNN hilarity. All pretty solid personalities and partisan hackery nowhere in sight!
http://twitter.com/Staciisa_bitch Staci Chase

Thought CNN did a better job. It was a lot more entertaining followed closely by MSNBC. But Since its an election about the GOP the GOP network of course would’ve had the highest ratings.
Anonymous

If the Management at COMCAST watched 5 minutes of the MSNBC coverage and could not figure out why their ratings continue to suck, they deserve the cellar. That was horrible. The commentators
are third rate with personalities eqivilant to those of snails. Pathetic.!! Fox laughs!!!! So do we!!
Anonymous

What was “Currents” ratings?
RW

I watched FOX coverage. They were very interesting and they had their share of yucks. What a surprise Mediaite would just revel in MSNBC coverage – not. Mediaite would even give kudos to CNN to get someone to take a look away from FOX.

Brett Baier is a professional. It will be interesting to see if President Obama will agree to a FOX sponsored debate.