Rachel Maddow Scores Big Friday Ratings on Trump-Military Story Fallout, Ranks Second in All of Cable News
The Rachel Maddow Show took advantage of the anti-Trump fallout from The Atlantic’s bombshell story and a night of Fox News primetime rerun specials to score big ratings on the Friday before Labor Day weekend.
During an extended, two-hour version of her show, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow dedicated a huge chunk of her airtime to news and reactions to the blockbuster report that Trump insulted and disparaged military veterans and war dead. Its first hour pulled in a strong 495,000 viewers in the coveted 25 to 54 age demographic. In overall viewers, TRMS also performed with 3.61 million total viewers. Both numbers ranked second overall in cable news on Friday, not far behind perennial ratings champ, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, which pulled in 543,000 and 3.83 million, respectively. Maddow’s second hour lost some of her 9:00-hour momentum, but still landed in seventh place in the demo, with 360,000 viewers and sixth in cable news with 2.71 million total viewers.
Other standouts on Friday included Fox’s The Five, which leapfrogged the last two hours of the network’s primetime programming to come in third with 489,000 in the demo (3.46 million overall). Hannity and The Ingraham Angle came in fourth and sixth, respectively, with 401,000 and 387,000 in the demo. And Fox’s Special Report with Bret Baier placed fifth in both A25 – 54 and total viewers, with 389,000 and 2.75 million viewers.
On average, however, TRMS’ double top-ten finish in primetime still wasn’t enough to push MSNBC over the top on Friday. The network came in second in the demo with 382,000 viewers, behind Fox’s 444,000, but solidly above CNN’s 272,000 viewers. In overall audience, the race was closer, but the results the same, as Fox came in first with 3.03 million, MSNBC second with 2.77 million, and CNN lagging behind in third at 1.23 million.
In total day, Fox swept both A25 – 54 and total viewers with 308,000 and 1.95 million on Friday. MSNBC was again runner-up with 236,000 and 1.65 million viewers, with CNN not far behind with 230,000 in the demo and trailing with 1.01 million.
