Fox News has enjoyed a surge in cable ratings as the destination of choice for President Trump’s supporters.
But The LATimes citing Nielsen data reports the conservative-leaning network — typically the top-rated channel — scored a rare third-place finish in prime-time ratings Tuesday in the advertiser-coveted 25-to-54 age group, behind CNN and MSNBC.
The ratings dip came on a day many pundits described as the worst of Trump’s presidency, a one-two punch of his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, being convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion, and his former lawyer Michael Cohen saying in court that Trump ordered hush money deals to pay off two women he had allegedly had sex with. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign-finance, bank and tax violations.
MSNBC, the channel on which criticism of the president is most harsh, won prime-time Tuesday night with 709,000 viewers in the demographic, according to Nielsen. CNN was second with 638,000 viewers, while Fox News had 613,000.
Among all viewers, MSNBC had the most with 3.3 million, followed by 2.9 million for Fox and 1.7 million for CNN. MSNBC’s 9 p.m. host Rachel Maddow scored 3.8 million viewers, her second-largest audience ever.
One day does not make a trend. But viewer response to coverage of the Manafort verdict and Cohen’s guilty plea raises the possibility that Fox may not be able to sustain its ratings dominance as Trump faces more scandal, and underscores the deep ideological divide in cable news.
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