Cable news ratings, August 9, 2011:
•MSNBC was live until well past midnight Tuesday with coverage of the Wisconsin recall election, leading the network to a second place finish overall and an average of more than 1.1 million total viewers in primetime. Ed Schultz, who was live from Wisconsin, had 1.137 million total viewers. Rachel Maddow had 1.231 million total viewers at 9 p.m., and was live again at midnight.
Overall, Fox News remained comfortably in first place, with an average audience of nearly 2.5 total viewers in primetime. Cable news’ top show on the night was The O’Reilly Factor, which had a total audience of more than 3.3 million viewers.
•Among total viewers, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer narrowly beat his colleague Piers Morgan for the network’s highest rated program Tuesday, with Situation Room attracting 738,000 viewers–just 1,000 ahead of Piers Morgan Tonight‘s 737,000.
Here’s the full scoreboard:
| TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD) | ||||
| 5 pm | The5 394 | Blitzer 174 | Matthews 141 | Special 109 |
| 6 pm | Baier 433 | Blitzer 168 | Live 194 | Prime 115 |
| 7 pm | Shep 578 | King, USA 147 | Matthews 200 | Issues 176 |
| 8 pm | O’Reilly 806 | Cooper 228 | O’Donnell 244 | Grace 192 |
| 9 pm | Hannity 569 | Morgan 236 | Maddow 368 | DrDrew 184 |
| 10 pm | Van Susteren 445 | Cooper 200 | Schultz 355 | Behar 123 |
| 11 pm | O’Reilly 435 | Cooper 149 | O’Donnell 266 | Showbiz 119 |
| TOTAL DAY | 341 | 156 | 150 | 103 |
| PRIME TIME | 606 | 221 | 324 | 163 |
| Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data. | ||||
| TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD) | ||||
| 5 pm | The5 1574 | Blitzer 738 | Matthews 797 | Special 313 |
| 6 pm | Baier 1960 | Blitzer 613 | Live 686 | Prime 415 |
| 7 pm | Shep 1992 | King, USA 510 | Matthews 812 | Issues 532 |
| 8 pm | O’Reilly 3313 | Cooper 604 | O’Donnell 995 | Grace 742 |
| 9 pm | Hannity 2341 | Morgan 737 | Maddow 1231 | DrDrew 577 |
| 10 pm | Van Susteren 1805 | Cooper 580 | Schultz 1137 | Behar 463 |
| 11 pm | O’Reilly 1283 | Cooper 396 | O’Donnell 978 | Showbiz 368 |
| TOTAL DAY | 1266 | 447 | 555 | 313 |
| PRIME TIME | 2491 | 640 | 1124 | 585 |
| Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data | ||||