Fox News Hits Ratings High With Rescue Coverage Of Chilean Miners

Some 7.1 million viewers tuned into Fox News at 8 PM last night to watch the last trapped Chilean miner, Luis Urzua, making it safely to the surface. That was not only the cable news channel’s largest audience in the hour this year but its biggest viewership since Election Night 2008. It more than doubled what the channel’s flagship series, The O’Reilly Factor, averages at 8 PM. Fox News not only pummeled its entire cable competition, it also beat broadcast networks NBC and Fox in the 8 PM hour. CNN also got a boost with its rescue coverage vs. the miniscule ratings it has been getting in the 8 PM slot with new talkshow Parker Spitzer. The network averaged 2.7 million viewers. That was almost 10 times what the show hosted by former New York Democratic governor Eliot Spitzer and political columnist Kathleen Parker most recently logged at 8 PM but trailed Fox News by a wide margin in the area CNN used to dominate — breaking news. MSNBC (1.1 million) was on par with what Keith Olbermann normally delivers in the 8 PM hour. Overall, Fox News’ primetime average last night was 4.9 million viewers, followed by CNN (2.4 million) and MSNBC (920,000).