There are a handful shows on cable news during prime time that broadcast once, and then pop up again a couple hours later as a re-air. They’re not always true repeats–in some cases, the entire production crew is still in the control room making sure everything runs smoothly. But there’s a strange phenomenon with the ratings of these shows: sometimes the re-air will actually out-rate the original broadcast. On Wednesday night, this happened with four of the five shows that regularly show up twice: AC360 (better in the 25-54 demo at 10 p.m. than 8 p.m.), The Ed Show (11 p.m. better than 8 p.m.), OutFront (11 p.m. better than 7 p.m.), and Hardball (7 p.m. bests the 5 p.m.). The only re-air to not beat its original broadcast? The O’Reilly Factor, which leads the night in ratings on a regular basis with its 8 p.m. first run.

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What does it mean? Who knows. But it’s a fun little fact on

a night without much noteworthy news from the numbers.

Some other nuggets from Wednesday:

  • MSNBC attracted over 200,000 viewers in the demo in three separate time slots (Matthews, Maddow, and O’Donnell at 7:00, 9:00, and 10:00, respectively). O’Donnell pulled a relatively strong rating of 237,000 demo viewers.
  • HLN’s Special Report at 5 p.m. attracted just 33,000 viewers in the demo. Even if you double that number, it still didn’t threaten the second-worst show.

    • Here are the complete cable news ratings for Wednesday night:

  • TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD)
    5 pm The5 

    392

    		 Blitzer 

    163

    		 Matthews 

    148

    		 Special 

    33
    6 pm Baier 

    438

    		 King, USA 

    99

    		 Sharpton 

    148

    		 Prime 

    74
    7 pm Shep 

    384

    		 Burnett 

    97

    		 Matthews 

    211

    		 Issues 

    133
    8 pm O’Reilly 

    704

    		 Cooper 

    167

    		 Schultz 

    188

    		 Grace 

    160
    9 pm Hannity 

    617

    		 Piers 

    158

    		 Maddow 

    264

    		 Dr. Drew 

    110
    10 pm Van Susteren 

    392

    		 Cooper 

    184

    		 O’Donnell 

    237

    		 Behar 

    84
    11 pm O’Reilly 

    419

    		 Burnett 

    124

    		 Schultz 

    195

    		 Showbiz 

    73
    TOTAL DAY 295 119 127 78
    PRIME TIME 573 170 231 116
    Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.
    TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD)
    5 pm The5 

    1,661

    		 Blitzer 

    865

    		 Matthews 

    806

    		 Special 

    157
    6 pm Baier 

    2,076

    		 King, USA 

    587

    		 Sharpton 

    728

    		 Prime
    252
    7 pm Shep 

    2,033

    		 Burnett 

    510

    		 Matthews 

    801

    		 Issues 

    365
    8 pm O’Reilly 

    3,546

    		 Cooper 

    493

    		 Schultz 

    1,032

    		 Grace 

    500
    9 pm Hannity 

    2,758

    		 Piers 

    582

    		 Maddow 

    1,006

    		 DrDrew 

    360
    10 pm Greta 

    1,795

    		 Cooper 

    582

    		 O’Donnell
    898    		 Behar 

    380
    11 pm O’Reilly 

    1,209

    		 Burnett 

    372

    		 Schultz
    554    		 Showbiz 

    247
    TOTAL DAY 1,260 424 477 206
    PRIME TIME 2,704 552 980 407
    Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data
    • Tags: CNN, Fox News, HLN, MSNBC