Shep Smith-Anchored Fox News Wins Balloon Boy Ratings

Cable news ratings, October 15, 2009: Check out the highlights, and see the full ratings below:

• The one bad thing about Office Hours yesterday was we didn’t get to watch Fox News’ Shepard Smith anchor coverage of the balloon saga. But many people did. Smith, who recently became the only news anchor to make AskMen.com’s Most Influential Men list, anchored his usual 3pmET hour for FNC, and the network had the best cable news ratings in the A25-54 demo and total viewers. CNN was 2nd, MSNBC 3rd.

• Here’s a breakdown of the 3-5pmET averages: (total viewers; demo)
Fox News- 2,431,000; 653,000
CNN- 1,736,000; 521,000
MSNBC- 768,000; 255,000

• But the top cable news show came the next hour – Glenn Beck had exactly 1,000,000 in the demo – good for the top spot. Bill O’Reilly was #1 in total viewers.

Check out all the ratings below, and leave your own thoughts in the comments:

TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD)
5 pm	Beck   1000	Blitzer   607	Matthews   151	Prime   265
6 pm	Baier   773	Blitzer   414	EdShow   165	Prime   289
7 pm	Shep   613	Dobbs   166	Matthews   142	Issues   208
8 pm	O’Reilly   889	Brown   191	Olbermann   291	Grace   235
9 pm	Hannity   778	King   290	Maddow   214	Behar   180
10 pm	Greta   557	Cooper   208	Olbermann   202	Grace   225
11 pm	O’Reilly   493	Amanpour   171	Maddow   184	Showbiz   215
TOTAL DAY	513	237	152	195
PRIME TIME	745	230	235	212
Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.

TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD)
5 pm	Beck   3222	Blitzer   1914	Matthews   663	Prime   568
6 pm	Baier   2570	Blitzer   1256	EdShow   652	Prime   702
7 pm	Shep   2271	Dobbs   719	Matthews   642	Issues   545
8 pm	O’Reilly   3562	Brown   752	Olbermann   1039	Grace   882
9 pm	Hannity   2608	King   1064	Maddow   894	Behar   543
10 pm	Greta   1657	Cooper   728	Olbermann   593	Grace   429
11 pm	O’Reilly   1320	Amanpour   565	Maddow   439	Showbiz   382
TOTAL DAY	1720	804	484	403
PRIME TIME	2614	848	842	607
Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.

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