While Fox News routinely finishes first in the ratings — with even their lowest-rated show beating the highest on any other station — Rachel Maddow‘s 329,000 viewers in the 25-54 year-old demo Wednesday night is still pretty impressive. It’s also the closest in recent memory to making a run at a Fox show on a night where there weren’t any substitute hosts or late-night specials. Maddow’s show at 9 p.m. attracted just 31,000 fewer demo viewers than Greta Van Susteren‘s show at 10:00. The way things go in the ratings world, Van Susteren may pull 454,000 tonight, while Maddow dips to 242,000, but — for at least one night — another network posed a small challenge to Fox’s dominance in the cable news ratings.

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Some other nuggets from Wednesday:

  • Maddow’s high numbers also proved to be a boon for Lawrence O’Donnell, who retained a nice chunk of her audience, pulling in 284,000 demo viewers at 10 p.m.
    , against Van Susteren.
  • Bill O’Reilly attracted 859,000 viewers in the demo, giving him his biggest audience in about three months. His 3.46 million total viewers also has some significance, especially if tonight’s theme is chasing the bigger boys: O’Reilly was just under 500,000 viewers behind a repeat of NBC’s Up All Night at 8:30.
  • Credit where credit’s due: Dr. Drew, after a horrible Tuesday night, pulled in 141,000 demo viewers on Wednesday.
  • In a neat little statistic, Fox finished first in every time slot, MSNBC finished second, CNN was third, and HLN was fourth.

    • Average Time Slot Finish:
    Fox News: 1
    MSNBC: 2
    CNN: 3
    HLN: 4

    Here are the complete cable news ratings for Wednesday night:

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

    364

    		 Blitzer 

    129

    		 Matthews 

    156

    		 Special 

    46
    6 pm Baier 

    518

    		 King, USA 

    101

    		 Sharpton 

    151

    		 Prime 

    78
    7 pm Shep 

    428

    		 Burnett 

    151

    		 Matthews 

    193

    		 Issues 

    112
    8 pm O’Reilly 

    859

    		 Cooper 

    199

    		 Schultz 

    214

    		 Grace 

    140
    9 pm Hannity 

    593

    		 Piers 

    153

    		 Maddow 

    329

    		 Dr. Drew 

    143
    10 pm Van Susteren 

    360

    		 Cooper 

    255

    		 O’Donnell 

    284

    		 Behar 

    108
    11 pm O’Reilly 

    476

    		 Burnett 

    162

    		 Schultz 

    174

    		 Showbiz 

    73
    TOTAL DAY 347 132 161 92
    PRIME TIME 608 202 275 130
    Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.
    TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD)
    5 pm The5 

    1,437

    		 Blitzer 

    666

    		 Matthews 

    805

    		 Special 

    244
    6 pm Baier 

    2,083

    		 King, USA 

    494

    		 Sharpton 

    755

    		 Prime
    275
    7 pm Shep 

    1,890

    		 Burnett 

    495

    		 Matthews 

    858

    		 Issues 

    373
    8 pm O’Reilly 

    3,463

    		 Cooper 

    772

    		 Schultz 

    949

    		 Grace 

    550
    9 pm Hannity 

    2,366

    		 Piers 

    521

    		 Maddow 

    1,086

    		 DrDrew 

    467
    10 pm Greta 

    1,630

    		 Cooper 

    698

    		 O’Donnell
    918    		 Behar 

    389
    11 pm O’Reilly 

    1,291

    		 Burnett 

    410

    		 Schultz
    559    		 Showbiz 

    261
    TOTAL DAY 1,430 479 584 264
    PRIME TIME 2,490 665 986 466
    Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data
    • Tags: CNN, Fox News, HLN, MSNBC, Ratings