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Hannity Outperforms Maddow in First Head-to-Head Ratings Match-Up

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Photo courtesy Pixabay.

In their first 9PM showdown Monday night, Fox News’ Sean Hannity bested MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in the battle for ratings.

According to data provided by Nielsen Media Research, Hannity received 3.3 million total viewers for his broadcast, making the program the most-watched show in all of basic cable.  Data suggests his show Hannity was also watched by 666,000 viewers in the critical advertising demographic between the ages of 25-54 years old.

Maddow delivered 2.7 million total viewers for her show in the same timeslot, finishing in second place.  The Rachel Maddow Show trailed Hannity by 610,000 viewers, and was also behind with adults aged 25-54 with 591,000 viewers.

Significantly, Maddow finishes the third quarter as the highest-rated program in cable news overall.  This marks the first time any MSNBC program has finished a quarter as the top cable news show.

Much of the growth associated with the three main cable news networks throughout 2016 seems to have slowed.  MSBNC remains the only network to see a year-over-year improvement in the third quarter, with viewership increasing by 43 percent, including a 29 percent increase in the 25-54 demographic.  However, Fox News remains the top network in basic cable, beating both MSNBC and CNN for the 63rd consecutive quarter.