LOS ANGELES (AP) - Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson enjoyed a ratings surge from the channel’s solo extended coverage of President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign kickoff.
Viewers watching last week’s rally in Orlando, Florida, helped cable star “Hannity” earn a rare top 10 showing among both broadcast and cable programs with 5 million viewers.
“Tucker Carlson Tonight” landed at No. 14 with 4.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen figures released Tuesday.
By comparison, the prior week’s top-rated shows for Hannity and Carlson drew 2.6 million and 2.2 million viewers, respectively.
While Fox News covered the hour-plus June 18 rally live and in full, the event got relatively limited attention from competitors MSNBC and CNN. The latter covered about six minutes at the start and aired clips later in the evening.
As has become routine, Fox News was the top-rated cable channel last week.
“Hannity,” which regularly ranks as the No. 1 cable show, and Carlson’s show also benefited from the summer TV doldrums. While NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” was the most-watched show with 10 million viewers, the generally lackluster ratings of network reruns and game shows provided an opening for the cable hosts.
CBS and NBC tied as the most-watched networks overall, with each averaging 3.67 million prime-time viewers. ABC was next with 3.38 million, followed by Fox Broadcasting with 2 million; ION with 1.38 million; Univision with 1.34 million; Telemundo with 1.21 million and CW with 690,000.
Behind Fox News, the most-watched cable networks were MSNBC with 1.52 million viewers, HGTV had 1.25 million, A&E had 1.18 million and USA had 1.1 million.
ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.97 million viewers, NBC’s “Nightly News” had 7.1 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.3 million.
For the week of June 17-23, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “America’s Got Talent” (Tuesday), NBC, 10 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 7.1 million; “60 Minutes” (8 p.m.), CBS, 6.2 million; “The Bachelorette,” ABC, 5.6 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 5.5 million; “Highwire Live in Times Square,” ABC, 5.3 million; “Hannity” (Tuesday), Fox News Channel, 5 million; “Holey Moley,” ABC, 4.87 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 4.86 million; “American Ninja Warrior,” NBC, 4.79 million.
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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox News and Fox Broadcasting are owned by Fox Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.
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Online:
http://www.nielsen.com
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