MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Benefits From Her Trump Focus

Donald Trump’s presidency so far has helped lift the viewership of some TV programs that go squarely after him, notably MSNBC’s ‘The Rachel Maddow Show,” CBS’s “Late Night With Stephen Colbert” and NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”

According to media writer Rodney Ho at ajc.om, Maddow’s show at 9 p.m. doubled its February 2017 ratings from February 2016, from 1.14 million to 2.231 million, moving from 15th to seventh place among cable news programs. For years, the top 10 cable news shows are typically all from Fox News. In the key 25-54 demo, Maddow almost doubled her numbers from 269,000 to 520,000 year over year, moving from 10th place to sixth.

In an interview with The Wrap, she said she has been ignoring many of the Trump Tweet storms in favor of focusing on “what they do rather than what they say.”

Last week, her numbers have gone even higher as she continues to focus on Trump’s Russian ties. On both Wednesday and Thursday nights, Maddow beat Fox News’ Tucker Carlson head to head in overall viewers and in the 25-54 demo. And both nights, she had the highest 25-54 demo of any cable news show.

Fox News is doing just fine. “The O’Reilly Factor” remains the top dog with 4.1 million viewers in February 2017 vs. 3.1 million in the same month 2016. “Hannity” is up from 1.8 million to 2.8 million. Carlson averaged 3.3 million, up from “The Kelly File” at 2.4 million a year earlier. CNN, without the ratings boost from debates in 2016, saw a drop in prime-time numbers but still grew in full day ratings year over year.