FOX NEWS LEADS ALL CABLE AND BROADCAST ELECTION COVERAGE

On a night of overwhelmingly conservative victories in midterm elections, the conservative-leaning Fox News Channel was the overwhelmingly favorite TV news outlet. Its coverage, co-anchored by Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly, averaged 6.3 million viewers during primetime versus 2.1 million for CNN and 1.7 million for MSNBC. FNC also led among the key (for news programming) 25­54 age group. At 10:00 p.m. the channel even surpassed the broadcast networks as it attracted 6.6 million viewers. By contrast, CBS’s election coverage averaged 5.4 million; NBC’s 4.2 million; and ABC’s 3.5 million, according to Nielsen Research. All of the TV news outlets, cable and broadcast, saw viewer declines from the last midterms in 2010, when Fox News led with 7 million viewers, followed by CNN with 2.4 million and MSNBC with 1.9 million.