Fox News’ Special Report Scores Big Wednesday Ratings with Trump Speech; Tucker Carlson Tonight Wins Primetime Demo

Trump’s impromptu Rose Garden speech/pseudo-campaign rally powered Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier to a big ratings win on Tuesday and on the first night of Tucker Carlson’s vacation, his show still scored the best ratings in cable news in the coveted 25 –54 age demographic.

Those strong performances led Fox to sweep total day and primetime ratings on Wednesday, according to Nielsen Media Research. In the 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. daypart, Fox News won with 361,000 viewers in the demo, far outpacing CNN’s 317,000 and MSNBC’s 216,000. It also took total day overall ratings with 2.09 million, beating MSNBC’s 1.54 million and CNN’s 1.23 million. Beside boosting Special Report, Trump’s speech and brief press conference, which ran from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., also gave a notable ratings jolt to Fox’s The Five, which jumped to more than 600,000 A25 – 54 viewers, easily wining its time-slot as well.

In primetime, Tucker Carlson Tonight did quite well with Brian Kilmeade filling in as guest host, notching the best cable news numbers in both primetime and through the whole day with 715,000 viewers in the demo. And the show’s 3.80 million total viewers fell just short of its 9:00 p.m. successor, Hannity, which posted the best overall cable news ratings with 3.83 million (664,000 in the demo). Fox’s The Ingraham Angle came in third across primetime in the demo with 528,000 viewers, just barely beating CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time‘s 524,000.

On average, Fox News rode those primetime numbers to first-place ratings in total viewers (3.63 million) and in the demo (629,000). CNN was the runner-up in the demo with 484,000 and MSNBC trailed behind with 355,000. Overall, MSNBC came in second with 2.38 million viewers and CNN was third with 1.84 million.