Thursday night’s ratings would have been excused if they were a little low; there was, after all, a World Series game, and MTV had the Jersey Shore season finale (and reunion!). But that wasn’t the case at all. Maybe it was Gadhafi’s murder, perhaps it was a string of repeats on other channels (Bill O’Reilly, for instance, beat out NBC repeats of Whitney and Community in total viewers), but the cable news networks posted some pretty strong numbers on the night as a whole, even if the tempting counter-programming hadn’t existed.
Some observations from around the dial:
No show on any of the four networks, from 5 p.m. to midnight, dipped below 123,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo. O’Reilly won the night with 550,000 viewers for his original 8 p.m. slot. And then his repeat at 11 p.m. beat every show on every other network throughout the night (Baier and Hannity, both on FOX, managed to beat his repeat). Anderson Cooper‘s 8 p.m. airing was the highest-rated non-FOX show on Thursday in the 25-54 demo, with 332,000 viewers. His 10 p.m. repeat was CNN’s second-highest of the evening. Jane Velez-Mitchell finished second at 7 p.m., behind FOX’s Shepard Smith. Coming in last in the time slot was Chris Matthews. Lawrence O’Donnell‘s last appearance at 8 p.m. saw him just edging out Nancy Grace, 197,000 viewers to her 185,000, for third place. Ed Schultz‘s last appearance at 10 p.m. (O’Donnell and Schwartz will be swapping spots on Monday) also produced a third-place finish. Throughout the night, the only MSNBC personality to not finish in third or fourth in the demo was Rachel Maddow, who came in second place to Hannity at 9 p.m. Here are the complete cable news ratings for Thursday night:
| TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD) |
| 5 pm | The5 307 | Blitzer 187 | Matthews 168 | Special 168 |
| 6 pm | Baier 445 | King, USA 215 | Sharpton 153 | Prime 156 |
| 7 pm | Shep 395 | Burnett 189 | Matthews 159 | Issues 205 |
| 8 pm | O’Reilly 550 | Cooper 332 | O’Donnell 197 | Grace 185 |
| 9 pm | Hannity 449 | Piers
249 | Maddow 325 | DrDrew 184 |
| 10 pm | Van Susteren 324 | Cooper 300 | Schultz 1225 | Behar 177 |
| 11 pm | O’Reilly 440 | Burnett
196 | O’Donnell 151 | Showbiz 134 |
| TOTAL DAY | 330 | 206 | 142 | 128 |
| PRIME TIME | 443 | 294 | 249 | 178 |
| Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data. |
| TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD) |
| 5 pm | The5 1,431 | Blitzer 965 | Matthews 906 | Special 560 |
| 6 pm | Baier 1,952 | King, USA 854 | Sharpton 762 | Prime 571 |
| 7 pm | Shep 1,801 | Burnett 679 | Matthews 734 | Issues 690 |
| 8 pm | O’Reilly 2,993 | Cooper 891 | O’Donnell 937 | Grace 753 |
| 9 pm | Hannity 2,182 | Piers 777 | Maddow 1,097 | DrDrew 582 |
| 10 pm | Greta 1,319 | Cooper 789 | Ed Show 874 | Behar 495 |
| 11 pm | O’Reilly 1,314 | Burnett 482 | O’Donnell 544 | Showbiz 424 |
| TOTAL DAY | 1,370 | 701 | 558 | 386 |
| PRIME TIME | 2,167 | 819 | 971 | 600 |
| Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data |