Monday Cable Ratings: CNN’s Blitzer Tops Fox’s O’Reilly in Demo with Robin Williams Coverage

Starting at 7 p.m. ET Monday night, CNN went wall-to-wall with coverage of Robin Williams’ tragic death, evidently giving viewers exactly what they wanted.

Not only did Erin Burnett Out Front (with guest host Don Lemon) beat Fox News’ On the Record with Greta Van Susteren in the 25-54 demo, but the network’s Wolf Blitzer-hosted special coverage at 8 p.m. also beat perennial front-runner Bill O’Reilly in the demo as well. Unlike Blitzer, who stayed on the Williams story non-stop, O’Reilly discussed it briefly at the top of his show before moving onto other news stories.

Fox News regained the demo lead at 9 p.m., but even after they put in Shepard Smith to replace Hannity with special coverage of Williams at 10 p.m., they could not beat CNN Tonight. CNN came close to beating Fox News overall in the primetime demo with an average 568K viewers compared to Fox’s 574K. MSNBC trailed far behind with 180K.

Fox’s lineup remained in first place when it came to total viewers, averaging 2.394M in primetime. But with 1.425M in primetime, CNN was up nearly 300% from the previous Monday. Again, MSNBC was third with 761K.

Here are the rest of your Monday ratings:

TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD)
6 – 9 am	Fox & Friends  227	New Day  117	Morning Joe  84	Express  127
5 pm	The Five  264	Blitzer  174	Schultz  81	Files  88
6 pm	Baier  302	Blitzer  177	Sharpton  118	Files  98
7 pm	Van Susteren  445	Burnett  504	Matthews  161	Velez-Mitchell  182
8 pm	O’Reilly  688	Blitzer  735	Hayes  169	Grace  166
9 pm	Kelly  580	Blitzer  525	Maddow  202	Dr. Drew  168
10 pm	Smith  441	Tonight  445	O’Donnell  167	Files  95
11 pm	O’Reilly  323	Tonight  363	Hayes  132	Files  105
PRIME TIME	574	568	180	143
Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.

TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD)
6 – 9 am	Fox & Friends  916	New Day  340	Morning Joe  344	Express  311
5 pm	The Five  1.987	Blitzer  946	Schultz  501	Files  179
6 pm	Baier  1.842	Blitzer  797	Sharpton  484	Files  215
7 pm	Van Susteren  2.010	Burnett  1.357	Matthews  715	Velez-Mitchell  391
8 pm	O’Reilly  3.292	Blitzer  1.856	Hayes  663	Grace  539
9 pm	Kelly  2.296	Blitzer  1.301	Maddow  845	Dr. Drew  467
10 pm	Smith  1.581	Tonight  1.118	O’Donnell  775	Files  324
11 pm	O’Reilly  1.379	Tonight  869	Hayes  404	Files  346
PRIME TIME	2.394	1.425	761	443
Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data

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