Fox News Channel last week drew its biggest primetime and total day audiences for the year during a politics-heavy news week that included coverage of the Republican National Convention and President Joe Biden’s decision not to run for re-election.
Fox News averaged 5 million viewers in primetime during the week of July 15-21, easily beating second-place ESPN’s 1.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen figures supplied by Fox News. The network bested its previous high of 3.8 million viewers set just last week.
MSNBC finished third with 1.1 million viewers, followed by CNN’s 1 million viewers and Hallmark Channel’s 775,000 watchers.
HGTV was sixth with 735,000 viewers, followed by TBS (601,000 viewers), INSP (581,000), Newsmax TV (580,000) and USA Network (545,000).
Fox News’s 2.5 million viewers on a total-day basis was also its high for the year, beating out the 2 million viewers the network averaged last week. MSNBC (716,000 viewers), CNN (571,000), Hallmark Channel (431,000), and ESPN (397,000) rounded out the top five most-watched networks on a 24-hour basis, according to Nielsen.