Tuesday Ratings: Greta Van Susteren Leaps To Third Overall

by Nando Di Fino | 6:48 pm, December 14th, 2011

» 18 comments

On Thursday night, Shepard Smith took third place overall (behind Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity) in the 25-54 year-old demo ratings. On Friday night, Bret Baier surged to third. On Monday, it was The Five. Tuesday night? Greta Van Susteren drew 406,000 viewers and landed in third place overall for the night.

Is this just some fun little game Fox News is playing with all of us? Rotating shows in and out of third place by manipulating Nielsen families with subtle mind games? One never knows. But for now, kudos to Van Susteren for being one of only three shows on the night — and the only non-O’Reilly/Hannity show this week — to draw over 400,000 demo viewers.

On a related note, we’ve heard that Van Susteren and her crew might have blown out Rush Limbaugh‘s power in his studio for 15 minutes today (although an emergency back-up source ensured the radio show wasn’t interrupted) as they were prepping to tape an interview with him in Florida. The lights for the interview were supposedly off, meaning it wasn’t FNC draining the power or tripping the circuits, so who actually blew out the power is in dispute. But the last time this happened to Rush’s studio? When Fox News previously came to Florida to interview him. A portion of Van Susteren’s talk with Limbagh will air tonight on her show, at 10 p.m. An extended version of the interview is slated for next week.

Other nuggets from Tuesday night:

Nancy Grace can lay claim to being the most consistent show on television recently. She finished in second place at 8 p.m. with 215,000 viewers.

Hannity narrowed the gap between his show and O’Reilly’s on Tuesday, bringing in 524,000 viewers to O’Reilly’s 560,000. Since there are essentially no trends in the ratings, this is likely just a one-night phenomenon.

The only shows attracting over one million overall viewers Tuesday night were those on FNC.

Tuesday night’s full ratings:

TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD)

5 pm

The5

320

Blitzer

131

Matthews

185

Special

6 pm

Baier

352

King, USA

145

Sharpton

175

Prime

7 pm

Shep

313

Burnett

127

Matthews

184

Issues

126

8 pm

O’Reilly

560

Cooper

153

Schultz

202

Grace

215

9 pm

Hannity

524

Piers

166

Maddow

221

Dr. Drew

10 pm

Van Susteren

406

Cooper

191

O’Donnell

186

Behar

11 pm

O’Reilly

395

Burnett

157

Schultz

110

Showbiz

TOTAL DAY

296

129

139

PRIME TIME

497

170

203

133

Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.

TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD)

5 pm	The5 1,481	Blitzer 581	Matthews 778	Special 182
6 pm	Baier 1,872	King, USA 525	Sharpton 783	Prime 298
7 pm	Shep 1,737	Burnett 472	Matthews 793	Issues 412
8 pm	O’Reilly 2,892	Cooper 575	Schultz 889	Grace 603
9 pm	Hannity 2,067	Piers 638	Maddow 994	DrDrew 402
10 pm	Greta 1,672	Cooper 513	O’Donnell 801	Behar 386
11 pm	O’Reilly 1,211	Burnett 330	Schultz 447	Showbiz 218
TOTAL DAY	1,318	413	539	251
PRIME TIME	2,213	575	895	459
Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data

(Image credit: Damian Dovarganes)

CNN, fox news, HLN, msnbc, Ratings

Anonymous

Greta blows everyone away again..
Anonymous

Way to pucker up, mediaite. Maybe she’ll write a positive blog about you all now.
Anonymous

But Mediaite, Maddow was doing so, so well just a few days ago! Now even the non-prime time “The 5″ is kicking her arse!

LOL
Anonymous

Truth hurts, don’t it son?
Anonymous

I love it when you hurt me with it, daddy.
Moderate

I wonder how often that 3AM program called Redeye beats Maddow.
Anonymous

It doesn’t beat Maddow yet, but it beats a # of others:

CNN’s 9 PM anchor Piers Morgan Tonight is regularly pummeled in the ratings by its Fox News primetime counterparts. But in October, it also got beat by Fox News’ overnight program Red Eye, which airs at 3 AM.

The talk show hosted by Greg Gutfeld averaged the largest audience in its five-year history (446,000) as well as 177,000 in adults 25-54. In the demo, it edged Piers Morgan (176,000) at 9 PM as well as a slew of other cable news programs in way more trafficked time slots: CNN’s Erin Burnett Outfront (146,000) at 7 PM, MSNBC’s Morning Joe (141,000) from 6-9 AM, MSNBC’s Hardball With Chris Matthews (163,000) at 5 PM and 7 PM, HLN’s Nancy Grace (157,000) at 8 PM, and CNN’s John King USA (121,000) at 6 PM

http://www.deadline.com/2011/11/cnns-piers-morgan-tonight-gets-beat-in-the-ratings-by-a-3-am-fox-news-show/
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WH3ZLMM7CUKUHUIMK4TKXW6SQE John

Did Nando get a call from Abrams to “play nice”? Was it hard to type these nice words?
http://dblogedition.blogspot.com/ dblogEdition

whats wrong with CNN? its just getting worse and worse every month. I know they trying to report the news the traditional way but come on CNN . optioned news is what sells nowadays.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_45S32GWGDRUJIL6E2U4HOZW4BM Bob

The power of Xenu compels you!
http://twitter.com/Nuktubian Andy

Thee most powerful name in NEWS!

And it drives the prog-commies bat-shit crazy Love it!
Anonymous

The thing about Fox news’ ratings is that, if you are a conservative, global warming denying, white, christian, anti-government, anti-science kind of person, there is only one channel for you to watch….that being Fox news.
Anonymous

you’re projecting… AGAIN.
Lakeview Greg

Oxytology.
Lakeview Greg

I agree about the blowing part.
http://twitter.com/Wallycrawler Wallycrawler

Her “Wall Of Fire”. Turns out is a match. Leaps into 3rd?
Anonymous

Since it has only one airing, and it’s in the dead of night, Red Eye also has many viewers who record the show for later viewing.

Many of those other shows have second airings prior to midnight in Mountain and Western time zones, but they still sometimes lose in demo and total viewers to Red Eye.
Anonymous

I’m betting a big NO on your first question.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/dan-abrams-responds-to-greta-van-susterens-mediaite-critique-struck-by-the-hypocrisy/