At 9 p.m. ET hour “Alex Wagner Tonight”The key news demo saw a 23% drop in viewers overall and a 15% decline in total viewers compared to the previous week
MSNBC already feels the loss of five-days-a week Rachel Maddow. At 9 p.m., viewers have been declining on the network. ET hour has seen a decrease in viewership since Alex Wagner assumed the timeslot, both in total viewership and in the advertiser-coveted age demographic (viewers aged 25-54).
In the week of Wagner’s debut last Tuesday, MSNBC’s total viewership for the hour dropped 15%, from 2 million viewers the week prior to 1.73 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. Even more dramatic was the 23% drop in key news demo viewers, which dropped from 214,000 to 164,000 for the entire week prior.
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Among all the cable news networks, Wagner’s show still managed to finish second for the hour on the four nights she aired, behind Fox News’ “Hannity,”which attracted 2.8 million viewers. “CNN Tonight”The third was distantly behind, with 766,000.
Wagner was only slightly ahead CNN in the key demo drawing 164,000, whereas CNN drew 162,000. (Fox News received 391,000 votes in the news demo between August 16-19.
“Alex Wagner Tonight”Last week’s key demo ranked 20th out of all cable news channels, “Hannity”The third-ranked station (averaging 388,000 viewers aged 25 to 54 for the entire week) was The lone “Rachel Maddow Show”On August 15, the demo audience was enough to place ninth with 233,000 viewers.
When Wagner debuted her new show Tuesday, Aug. 16, MSNBC blew CNN out of the water with 2 million total viewers compared to a total audience of about 866,000 earned by CNN. However, Fox News’ “Hannity”With 3.1 million total viewers, MSNBC and CNN combined, and 404,000 viewers in the demo, it beat CNN and MSNBC.
Since firing Chris Cuomo last Dec., CNN has struggled to reach the 9 p.m. time slot. This was due to his involvement in advising his brother (ex-Gov. of New York). Andrew Cuomo on allegations of sexual assault.
“The Rachel Maddow Show,”The show, which is only broadcast on Mondays now and has no other programming, was the only non Fox News show to reach the top 10 cable news programs in terms of total viewers and viewers within the key demo. The show averaged 2.4 million viewers in July, the month Maddow switched to weekly hosting. It was also the only non-Fox News program to reach the top five cable news shows by total viewers.
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