Weekly Cable Ratings: Fox News Stays Hot; NFL Network Tackles Third Place in Primetime

Fox News Channel continued its summer ratings dominance, topping the primetime and total day charts during the second week of August.

Fox News averaged 2.2 million primetime viewers for the week of August 12-18, besting MSNBC’s 1.4 million viewers for its 11th-straight win, according to Nielsen numbers supplied by Fox News.

NFL Network moved into third place on the strength of its live NFL preseason games, averaging 794,000 viewers. CNN finished in fourth place with 785,000 viewers, followed by ESPN with 770,00 watchers.

HGTV pulled into sixth place with 671,000 viewers, followed by Hallmark Channel (628,000 viewers), INSP (546,000), USA Network (525,000), and History (502,000).

On a 24-hour basis, Fox News won for the 32nd consecutive week, averaging 1.4 million viewers, followed by MSNBC (943,000 viewers), CNN (562,000), ESPN (436,000) and HGTV (367,000), according to Nielsen.