Fox News Ends 2019 With Its Highest Primetime Ratings Ever, Hannity Finishes No. 1

Fox News continued to dominate its cable news rivals all throughout 2019, and as the year comes to an end, the network is celebrating its highest-rated primetime ever.

It’s been a huge year for news on Fox, CNN, and MSNBC — with major events ranging from from all the congressional hearings to debates and town halls with 2020 candidates.

Over the course of 2019, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Rachel Maddow were among the most-watched shows in cable TV — with Hannity has dominating the ratings in both his time slot and overall, and ending the year with the most-watched cable news program. In all, Hannity drew 3.26 million viewers per night, and 528k in the advertiser coveted 25-54 demographic. Tucker Carlson Tonight came in second with 3.02 million total viewers and 509k in the demo. And The Rachel Maddow Show drew 2.8 million people nightly, with 465k in the 25-54 bracket. Fox’s The Ingraham Angle (2.57 million total, 420k demo), and The Five (2.55 million total, 392k demo) rounded out the top five.

Hannity tweeted a thank-you this afternoon saying, “Thank you to my fellow smelly Walmart shoppers and trump supporters. Thank you to all my fellow Irredeemable deplorables And thank you to all my Fellow Americans That Cling to God our creator, our Constitution, our Bibles, and our Faith… You made this happen. We pledge to work harder than ever in 2020. In 328 Days We The People have the ability to shock the world again.”

Overall Fox News averaged a total of 2.481 million viewers in primetime, compared to 1.753 million for MSNBC and 972K for CNN. Fox also won the key demo with 390K viewers to MSNBC’s 281K and CNN’s 256K. Fox’s overall primetime audience increased by 2% over 2018, but fell 16% in the demo. MSNBC dropped 3% in the total viewers category from a year ago, and 21% in the demo. CNN’s 2019 overall primetime numbers were off 2% from 2018, and 21% in the demo.

Fox easily beat its competitors in total day numbers as well, with 1.394 million viewers total and 239K in the demo. The former number represents a 2% drop in the overall category, and the latter number shows a 15% decrease in the demo.

MSNBC beat CNN in total day viewers overall — 990K to 649K — but CNN beat MSNBC in the demo, with 164K to 153K. MSNBC was even with last year in total day overall, and 22% down in the demo. CNN suffered an 8% loss from 2018 in the overall metric, and 23% in the demo.

And, of course, this is all heading into a presidential election year, so things can only get wilder from here…

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