November’s ratings are in and, as expected, there were big gains for the cable news networks due to election coverage and all the drama both before and after the big night.

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CNN ended the month as the fifth-most watched network in all of basic cable, enjoying its best overall month in eight years. Much of this was probably thanks to the fact that CNN had the most watched primetime Election Night coverage in cable news history. Fox News, meanwhile, was the most watched network in all of basic cable.

When it came to viewership, CNN saw its best 25-54 demo ratings since November 2008 and its second best month in total day viewers since October 2008.

However, while the network enjoyed a huge month in comparison to the last few years, it was still well behind Fox News. For the month, Fox topped all of cable news in the 25-54 demo and total viewers in all of the major viewing times.

In Monday-Friday primetime, Fox led the way with 3.83 million viewers, compared to CNN’s 1.

83 million and MSNBC’s 1.65 million. For Total Day, Fox was on top with 1.97 million, followed by CNN’s 993,000 and MSNBC’s 736,000. Daytime viewership was also dominated by Fox as it pulled in 2.09 million. CNN’s programming reeled in 1.04 million viewers and MSNBC finished third at 695K.

Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor maintained its top spot among cable news programming, giving Bill O’Reilly’s show 192 months as the #1 cable news program. The Factor pulled in 4.09 million viewers and 816,000 in the 25-54 demo. Sean Hannity also enjoyed a strong month, seeing his program Hannity finish second in the 25-54 demo with 795,000 viewers while averaging 3.26 million total viewers.

MSNBC showed significant growth in November and outpaced both CNN and Fox News in gains when compared year-to-year. Their total day viewership grew by 84%, compared to 76% for CNN and 60% for Fox. The network’s daytime programming saw even bigger growth as it shot up 94% in total viewers and 145% in the 25-54 demo.

While Fox News won across the board in primetime programming, MSNBC saw wins in the 7 PM, 9 PM, 10 PM and 11 PM timeslots over CNN. (CNN, however, led in the demos.) In particular, The Rachel Maddow Show average 1.79 million viewers during the month.

Regarding the

business channels, Fox Business beat CNBC in both business day (9:30 AM to 5 PM) and total day viewership. In business day, FBN pulled in 240,000 viewers to CNBC’s 181,000. For the whole day, FBN averaged 196,000 and CNBC grabbed 159,000.

[image via networks]

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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

Tags: CNBC, CNN, Fox Business Network, Fox News, MSNBC, Ratings