OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Tucker Carlson’s primetime show on Fox News has smashed another key barrier.
Television viewership data released by Nielsen/MRI Fusion reveals that Carlson’s show is the number one most-watched show among Democrats in the key demographic of 25-54 year-olds.
“The data, from the month of October, showed that Carlson pulled in 101,000 viewers who self-identified as Democrats in the 25-54 demographic. MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” and Fox’s “The Five” were tied for second place, each attracting 88,000 viewers in the key demo who self-identified as Democrats. The next two spots are occupied by Sean Hannity, who took in 81,000 young Democrat viewers, and Greg Gutfeld, who pulled 73,000,” the Daily Wire reported.
“Maddow still has a significant advantage in total Democratic viewership, pulling in a total of 908,000 viewers across all age groups. “The Five” pulled in the second most, with 732,000 viewers who identified themselves as Democrats, and Carlson followed close behind with 722,000 total Democrats. Hannity and MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell rounded out the top five, with Hannity garnering 623,000 Democrat viewers, and O’Donnell taking 607,000,” the Daily Wire added.
“As a network, Fox News owns the majority of cable news airtime around the clock. Fox takes in 56% of total primetime viewership, and 55% of daytime viewership. Fox also leads CNN and MSNBC among Independents and even pulls in a plurality of Democrats. Fox pulled in a total of 58% of all Independents who watched cable news, while MSNBC garnered 25% and CNN got just 17%. Fox was number one among self-identified Democrats, with 39% of total viewership, MSNBC came just in second place with 38%, and CNN fell behind with just 24%,” the DW report detailed.
Carlson is hardly the only host on the network smashing records.
Jesse Waters took over as the permanent host of the 7 PM EST weekday time slot this week on Fox News Channel and he raked in 3.8 million total viewers on his first day, Monday. That represented the network’s best ratings in that timeslot in more than a year, Yahoo News reported.
In fact, Watters’ debut scored double the viewership for the hour compared to the same day in 2021 and more viewers than every “Fox News Primetime” telecast since the show launched last year with a rotating cast of hosts.
In fact, Watters drew more viewers — including 537,000 in the advertiser-coveted age demographic of 25 to 54 — than Fox News has gotten at the 7 p.m. slot since Jan. 6, 2021.
He spoke to “The Wrap” on Monday, before his show debuted, and gave an idea of what he envisioned for it.
He said that it would be “an entertaining hour with news and politics and culture, crime, tabloid — everything.” Which means he wants to be certain to take into account viewer feedback.
“We’re also going to be debuting something,” he said. “You know how my mom’s always texting me? We didn’t think that was fair for just my mom to be able to text me, so we’re going to be putting out a number where the whole country can text me. We’re going to have an open line of communication with the country, so I’ll be listening to them.”
“That’s what the show is about: Listening and then rallying for the people. We’ll be having a segment at the end of each show where I will be putting people’s texts on the air and I’ll be responding to them because we want to hear from the people,” the host said.
Waters is remaining as a co-host on “The Five” at 5 PM EST, giving him an hour between shows which he said he would use to decide what to do on his own show.
