An exclusive interview with Vice President Kamala Harris on MSNBC wasn’t enough to topple the Fox News Channel from its ratings perch, according to preliminary Nielsen data reviewed by The Desk.
The interview on Wednesday drew 1.738 million overall viewers to MSNBC during the 7 p.m. hour, when the network airs “All In with Chris Hayes.” During the show, MSNBC aired its sit-down interview between Harris and MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle, who hosts her own program called “The 11th Hour” for the network.
While the show saw an increase in overall viewers compared to a normal edition of All In, the interview with Harris drew fewer overall viewers than “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News, which saw an audience of 2.2 million tune in during the same hour.
Fox News also had a higher audience in the key demographic of adults between the ages of 25 to 54 years old (A25-54) — the group most-favored by cable news advertisers — with 222,000 A25-54 viewers tuning in to The Ingraham Angle compared to 207,000 A25-54 viewers in the same time slot on MSNBC.
Other Fox News shows like “The Five,” “Jesse Watters Primetime,” “Hannity” and “Gutfeld!” also had higher overall and A25-54 viewers on Wednesday, Nielsen ratings showed.
During evening ehours on Wednesday, Fox News was the highest-rated network across all cable news channels, with 2.7 million overall viewers and 341,000 in the A25-54 group between the hours of 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. Eastern Time. By comparison, MSNBC averaged 1.47 million overall viewers and 168,000 in the A25-54 group, while CNN had 735,000 overall viewers and 150,000 in the A25-54 group.
Early Nielsen data is based on live viewership in metered markets, and typically does not include out-of-home viewing, which can elevate viewership counts across programs and channels. Finalized Nielsen data is expected to be released by Thursday evening.
The Fox News Channel is operated by Fox News Media, which is part of Fox Corporation. MSNBC and NBC News are operated by NBC Universal, the broadcast division of Comcast. CNN is owned by Warner Bros Discovery.
