Fox News USA Hallmark Remote Control — Fox News/USA/Hallmark/Shutterstock

The year 2017 marked a time of shakeout in basic cable TV, after a turbulent 2016 in which reality TV stars Donald Trump ran madly into the White House, as viewers continued to seek networks that comforted/reflected them.

USA Network celebrated its 12th consecutive year as the top entertainment network in primetime total viewers, while also finishing first in the adults 18-49 demographic as well as among 18-34 year olds.

Fox News Channel marked its second consecutive year as the most watched basic cable network in primetime. The network held steady year to year in primetime audience overall, hanging onto its considerable Trump-election-cycle crowd. CNN slid slightly compared to the humdinger of an election year, when it had hosted many of those gobsmacking political debates. Meanwhile, MSNBC spiked a whopping 50% in 2017 to take the Most Improved Crown, though some credit is due to Trump and his administration for providing most of its best material.

Speaking of seeing comfort, Hallmark and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries continued to buck the industry-erosion trend in total viewers and the key demo, with lineups of high-concentrated comfort programming.

Also bucking the cable numbers trend was The Weather Channel, though for opposite reasons, as viewers tuned in for the latest info about devastating weather events including the hurricanes that pummeled Puerto Rico, Florida and Texas.

Here are the final rankings:

Basic Cable Rankings 2017
(Total Viewers in millions)

Rank	network	p2+ 2017 (l+7)	p2+ 2016 (l+sd)
1	Fox News Channel	2.46M	2.48M
2	ESPN	2.06M	1.91M
3	MSNBC	1.66M	1.11M
4	USA Network	1.62M	1.68M
5	HGTV	1.51M	1.58M
6	TBS	1.45M	1.59M
7	Nickelodeon	1.36M	N/A
8	Discovery	1.32M	1.40M
9	History	1.31M	1.33M
10	TNT	1.28M	1.55M
11	Hallmark Channel	1.22M	1.06M
12	Investigation Discovery	1.10M	0.994M
13	CNN	1.07M	1.30M
14	AMC	1.03M	1.26M
15	FX	0.997M	1.11M
16	A&E Network	0.983M	0.847M
17	Food Network	0.969M	1.06M
18	TLC	0.949M	0.877M
19	Bravo	0.885M	0.908M
20	Lifetime	0.810M	0.955M
21	Adult Swim	0.774M	0.991M
22	Freeform	0.765M	0.812M
23	TV Land	0.715M	0.620M
24	Hallmark Movies & Mysteries	0.709M	0.549M
25	Nick at Nite	0.688M	0.808M
26	VH1	0.637M	0.639M
27	Nick Jr.	0.623M	0.594M
27	Syfy	0.623M	0.692M
29	MTV	0.564M	0.580M
30	Animal Planet	0.551M	0.593M

Source: Nielsen; Live+7 numbers from 12/26/16-12/17/17; Live+SD numbers from 12/29/17-12/31/17

Basic Cable Rankings 2017
(Adults 18-49 demo in thousands)

Rank	Film	p 18-49 2017 (l+7)	p 18-49 2016 (l+sd)
1	ESPN	848K	816K
2	USA Network	664K	692K
3	TBS	654K	729K
4	TNT	557K	625K
5	Discovery Channel	505K	575K
6	FX	477K	560K
7	AMC	474K	610K
8	Bravo	447K	469K
9	Adult Swim	443K	530K
10	HGTV	421K	476K
11	A&E Network	400K	390K
11	History	400K	417K
13	VH1	399K	396K
14	Food Network	385K	431K
15	Freeform	383K	408K
16	MTV	381K	373K
17	Nickelodeon	351K	N/A
18	Investigation Discovery	349K	327K
19	TLC	346K	334K
20	Fox News Channel	323K	354K
21	Lifetime	321K	411K
22	CNN	297K	373K
23	Hallmark Channel	277K	251K
24	Comedy Central	274K	337K
25	MSNBC	267K	207K
26	Nick at Nite	261K	298K
27	Syfy	250K	280K
28	E! Entertainment	237K	290K
29	BET Network	228K	209K
30	TruTV	223K	223K