Fox News Tucker Carlson new Darling of News Media

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Tucker Carlson’s First Two Weeks In Primetime Outstrip Megyn Kelly On FNC

by Lisa de Moraes

January 24, 2017 10:03am

Two full weeks into hosting Fox News Channel’s 9 PM timeslot, Tucker Carlson is averaging 3.7 million viewers, 775,000 of them in the 25-54 news demo, topping CNN and MSNBC in both metrics.

Tucker Carlson Tonight’s numbers also are 37% higher in viewers and up 50% in the news demo compared with the 2016 average of Megyn Kelly’s The Kelly File in the 9 PM slot. Compared with Kelly’s performance in the same two weeks last year, Carson is up 95% in the demo and 46% in overall audience. That said, the same two weeks last year did not include Donald Trump’s inauguration. But Carlson’s numbers seem to make the point that FNC has managed to transition the timeslot after Kelly’s very dramatic tenure and departure for NBC News without seeming to miss a beat.

Against Carlson’s two-week average, CNN’s various programs logged 2M viewers and 633K news demo viewers, while MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show logged 2.01M total viewers and 417K news demo viewers.

Last week, January 16-22, FNC again dominated all basic cable networks in both total viewers and in the news demographic in primetime (3.92M, 840K)  and total day (2.48M, 522K). The week of Trump’s inauguration marked FNC’s  highest-rated week since the 2016 election.

CNN (1.77M) was basic cable’s second-most watched network in primetime, ahead of HGTV (1.65M), USA (1.53M) and Discovery (1.5M).

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