MSNBC’s Impeachment Crisis Special With Ari Melber — a Ratings Hit?

MSNBC’s Sunday night special on impeachment is already a ratings success. Trump & Ukraine: Impeachment Crisis, hosted at 9 p.m. by Ari Melber, notched a rare Sunday night victory for MSNBC over Fox News in the key demographic and beat out CNN in both the demo and total viewers.

While Fox’s competing 9:00 p.m. show on Sunday, The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton, took the top spot for total viewers — clocking in at 1.2 million — Melber’s special on President Donald Trump’s ongoing impeachment crisis logged 167,000 viewers in the key demo, while the president’s favorite news network brought in just 148,000 in the category.

CNN came in dead last in all categories, as the latest episode of their series Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies landed 109,ooo in the key demo and 463,000 in total viewers — a number that was more than doubled by MSNBC.

While Fox’s conservative opinion programs on Sunday night — Hilton’s show and Mark Levin’s hourlong MAGA-fest — typically dominate in the ratings, MSNBC’s decision to dedicate a special to covering the wild impeachment inquiry, featuring analysis from a bipartisan selection of guests, appears to be resonating with viewers. It was the only hour on Sunday that beat out Fox News in the demo.

Melber, the host of weekday MSNBC show The Beat, has been hosting the Sunday special for two weeks. The show has crammed in an impressive roster of guests, from presidential historian Michael Beschloss to former North Dakota Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan, former federal appeals judge Tim Lewis, conservative lawyer David Rivkin, Daily Beast law enforcement reporter Betsy Woodruff and Center for Constitutional Rights director Vince Warren.

Fox’s Greg Gutfeld Show, which aired on Saturday at 10:00 p.m., brought in the most viewers in the demo over the entire weekend, with 297,000.