• by Wayne Friedman , August 23, 2023

Interest in the Trump indictments and the previews of tonight's Republican Presidential debate have fueled a very close battle for viewers between the top two major cable TV news networks.

For the week ending August 14, Fox News Network had 1.64 million viewers, with MSNBC close behind at 1.61 million, according to Nielsen. Compared to a year ago, Fox is down 30%, while MSNBC is 18% higher.

CNN was much farther back in the pack -- with less than half the total of both MSNBC and CNN at 770,000. CNN is up 3%. 

The three networks' total is 4.01 million, compared to the total of 4.45 million a year ago.

One factor to include in the analysis of these results year-over-year is that former prime-time host Tucker Carlson is no longer at Fox News. He departed in April of this year. 

Total day viewing has shown similar results, with Fox News Channel coming in at 1.1 million (down 26%) and MSNBC at 1.0 million (up 22%) and CNN at 551,000 viewers (slipping 3%). MSNBC had its best total day weekly results since March 2021.

MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” -- which airs on Monday -- was the highest-rated show, at 3.9 million.

For those Monday to Friday shows, Fox News Channel’s “The Five” posted the best result, with 2.6 million viewers.

MSNBC’s  “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” was next with 2.2 million. Fox’s “Hannity” was next, at 2.12 million.