The New York Times reported today that Fox News will end up the year with 2.4 million prime-time viewers, behind only the NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox. And this is the first time Fox News will finish No. 1 in prime time and total day ratings for basic cable channels.
Even beleaguered CNN was up 76 percent year over year in prime time, averaging 1.3 million viewers. In the 25-54 demographic, CNN averaged 423,000 viewers, almost matching Fox News’s 481,000 total.
MSNBC tallied the biggest gain of the cable news networks with an 87 percent increase in total prime time viewers to 1.1 million. The network also posted a 97 percent increase in the 25-54 segment.
Fox News closes out the year hosting the top two most-viewed cable news shows with Bill O’Reilly’s “The O’Relly Factor” in first place followed by Megyn Kelly’s “The Kelly File.”
The median viewer age is 66 for Fox News, 61 for CNN and 63 for MSNBC.
Fox News Media issued a pretty sparse release to announce the departure of one of its stars. “Effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with FOX News Media,” it reads.
Brunswick Group partner John Simons has joined CNN as senior director of business & media. He held top jobs at Time and the Wall Street Journal.
WNET, the nation’s largest public media company, names Edward O’Keefe its next president and CEO, effective September 21. O’Keefe succeeds Neal Shapiro, who becomes president emeritus and will retire at the end of the year... The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would empower news publishers and other content providers to defend themselves by mandating transparency for all bots crawling their sites, in introduced in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC)... Google gets socked by European Union regulators with a $1 billion fine for using the platform’s dominance as a search engine to illegally undercut competition.
Boston Globe Media acquires InstaTrac, a company that provides subscription-based services aimed at making government information easier to find, track, and understand... AARP names former New Republic CEO and publisher Michael Caruso as its SVP and chief content officer, unifying the organization's portfolio of media, live events and digital platforms... The Fund for American Studies, an educational nonprofit, awards its inaugural Journalism Excellence Fellowships.
Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. has replaced CEO and former California Congressman Devin Nunes with Kevin McGurn, a seasoned media sales executive.
