CHANGING OF THE GUARD

MSNBC Beats Fox News in Primetime as Scandals Mount

For the first time in 17 years, Fox News fell to third place in key primetime 25-54 viewership.

As scandals continue to mount for both Fox News and the Trump White House, something happened last week that hasn’t happened in 17 years: Fox News finished third in the coveted primetime demographic of viewers aged 25-54. MSNBC has seemingly benefited the most from a slew of bad press for Trump, as it topped CNN and Fox News last week in both total viewership and the key demographic—the first time in MSNBC’s 21-year history. And the last time Fox News finished third—behind both MSNBC and CNN—in the primetime demo for a full week was the week of June 9, 2000. Across the week of May 15-19, 2017, MSNBC averaged 2.44 million total viewers and 611,000 demo viewers during the primetime hours. Fox News, by comparison, averaged in 2.41 million and 497,000 in the respective categories.