Fox News has pulled off another dominant quarter, claiming the top 10 cable news programs in 3Q 2009 and growing against 3Q 2008, while CNN and MSNBC lost substantial portions of their election-boom audience.
Fox News averaged 2.25 million total viewers in prime time for the third quarter, up 2% over the previous year. That's more than CNN (946,000, down 30%) and MSNBC (788,000, down 10%) combined.
"The O'Reilly Factor" led all cable news programs with an average of 3.295 million total viewers for the quarter, up 12% over the previous year. "Hannity" (2.603 million, up 9%), "Glenn Beck" (2.403 million, up 89%), "On the Record with Greta van Susteren" (2.150 million, up 16%), and "Special Report with Bret Baier" (1.997 million, up 20%) rounded out the top five.