Hannity and Tucker Carlson Tonight Share Daily Ratings Title; Dogfight at 4:00 PM Continues

Fox News’ Hannity and Tucker Carlson Tonight effectively shared the overall cable news ratings title on Tuesday despite slight ratings dips for both, while the three-way battle for supremacy in the 4:00 afternoon slot continued apace.

Overall, Tuesday saw a split decision between CNN and Fox News in the daytime and primetime ratings in the coveted 25 – 54 age demographic, with the former posting a narrow victory 355,000 to 339,000 in daytime, while the latter breezed to a win in the 8:00 to 11:00 p.m.m hours, 663,000 to 443,000 in the demo. In total viewers, Fox News ran away from the competition with 1.96 million overall in daytime (CNN: 1.28 million; MSNBC: 1.37 million) and 3.89 million in primetime (CNN: 1.64 million; MSNBC: 2.47 million).

As the prospect of regular coronavirus task force briefings fades, the early evening ratings numbers have considerably settled down from the monster number of eyeballs drawn to President Trump’s night jousting with the press. Special Report with Bret Baier, the most commonly pre-empted show — and ratings beneficiary — still reigned at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday with 3.25 million overall and 575,000 in the demo. But these numbers still represent a huge drop-off from recent weeks, when that hour on Fox News routinely pulled in more than five million in the P2+ category and one million viewers in the demo. Fox’s top-rated 7:00 hour has also seen its ratings trimmed back toward pre-coronavirus levels.

Moving into primetime, Hannity and Tucker Carlson Tonight put up almost matching ratings on Tuesday, with the 8:00 hour on Fox News posting 4.07 million overall and 694,000 in the demo, while the network’s 9:00 hour saw its P2+ numbers slightly edge up to 4.08 million while barely softening in the demo to 689,000. The pair’s mirrored numbers not only won primetime, they were better than any other cable news show on Tuesday, even sneaking past recent ratings juggernaut The Five, which came in third with 3.79 million P2+ and 673,000 demo viewers. But their ratings also marked a noticeable dip from Monday’s, having fallen off more than 200,000 in total viewers each and nearly 80,000 for Carlson and 50,000 for Hannity in the demo.

Meanwhile, the ratings scrum in the later afternoon showed no sign of abating, as the 4:00 p.m. hour was again the scene of a hard-fought battle, where every network could claim some kind of success. CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper won in the demo with 409,000, beating out Fox’s Neil Cavuto’s 348,000 and MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace at 273,000. Overall viewer numbers, however, told a different tale, as Fox topped all others with 2.17 million, MSNBC came in right behind at 2.09 million, and CNN trailed in third with 1.61 million.