The invasion of Ukraine by Russia saw cable news viewership rise dramatically, with Fox News Channel leading and CNN the most dramatic.
Between Sunday night’s start and Wednesday night’s end of the war, CNN, Fox, and MSNBC amounted to 6.4 million prime-time viewers. The Nielsen company stated that this is an increase from their January average 4 million viewers.
Fox had 2.32 million viewers for the entire day, an increase of 64% over January’s quieter news month. The audience of CNN jumped from 633,000 viewers in January to 1.75million last week, an increase of 178%. MSNBC’s war coverage was covered by 980,000 people, an increase of 51% from January.
These numbers are consistent with a trend: CNN tends have the largest increases during major news events, while its competitors, which are more focused on politics, are steady in quiet periods.
The venerable series Law & Order returned to entertainment last week with 5.8million viewers watching its revival. Along with “Chicago Fire,” and its spinoffs, this gave Dick Wolf four series that ranked in the top 12 on Nielsen’s Top 12.
CBS won prime time with an average of 4.5 million viewers. ABC had 3.5million viewers, NBC had 3.4million, Fox had 2million, Fox had 1.7million, Univision had 1.7million, Telemundo had one million, Ion Television had 1.1million, and Telemundo had 1.2 million.
Fox News Channel was the most popular cable network with 3.17 million prime-time viewers. CNN had 1.5 million viewers, MSNBC had 1.39million, ESPN had 1.15million, and HGTV had 1.1million.
ABC’s “World News Tonight”, which averaged 9 million viewers, won the evening news ratings race. NBC’s Nightly News had 7.6 million viewers, while CBS Evening News had 5.3 million.
The top 20 prime-time shows, their networks, and viewerships for the week of February 21-27:
1. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 8.36 million.
2. “FBI,” CBS, 7.33 million.
3. “The Equalizer,” CBS, 7.18 million.
4. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 7.13 million.
5. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 6.95 million.
6. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 6.83 million.
7. “American Idol,” ABC, 6.3 million.
8. “Blue Bloods,” CBS, 6.25 million.
9. “FBI: International,” CBS, 6.13 million.
10. “Chicago PD,” NBC, 6.01 million.
11. “Ghosts,” CBS, 5.85 million.
12. “Law & Order,” NBC, 5.8 million.
13. “Jeopardy! College Championship,” ABC, 5.72 Million.
14. CBS, 5.7 Million.
15. “NBC New Special Report on Russia/Ukraine Crisis”, NBC, 5.34 Million.
16. “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 5.23 million.
17. “Magnum P.I.,” CBS, 5.21 million.
18. “Law & Order: SVU,” NBC, 5.15 million.
19. ABC, 5.14 Million.
20. Fox, 5.13 Million.
