MSNBC Beats Fox News in Primetime as Scandals Mount

As scandals continue to mount for both Fox News and the Trump White House, something happened last week that hasn’t happened in 17 years: Fox News finished third in the coveted primetime demographic of viewers aged 25-54. MSNBC has seemingly benefited the most from a slew of bad press for Trump, as it topped CNN and Fox News last week in both total viewership and the key demographic—the first time in MSNBC’s 21-year history. And the last time Fox News finished third—behind both MSNBC and CNN—in the primetime demo for a full week was the week of June 9, 2000. Across the week of May 15-19, 2017, MSNBC averaged 2.44 million total viewers and 611,000 demo viewers during the primetime hours. Fox News, by comparison, averaged in 2.41 million and 497,000 in the respective categories.