Iowa's big winner
with viewers: Fox News
Averages 2.63 million primetime viewers on Tuesday
By Bill Cromwell
Jan 5, 2012
Mitt Romney's margin of victory in Tuesday's Iowa caucus was razor thin, but not so for Fox News Channel.
The No. 1 cable news network scored a dominant victory over its two main competitors in coverage of the first major event of the 2012 presidential campaign, and it was also the only one to see its numbers rise compared to four years ago.
Fox News averaged 2.63 million total viewers in primetime Tuesday, according to Nielsen, double No. 2 CNN's 1.31 million average. MSNBC was third at just under 1.2 million.
FNC was up 7 percent from 2008, when it averaged 2.46 million viewers. MSNBC was down slightly, from 1.3 million viewers four years ago.
CNN saw by far the biggest slide. Its viewership declined by 40 percent, down from 2.2 million four years ago.
FNC was also dominant among 25-54s, averaging 683,988 viewers to CNN's 486,184 and MSNBC's 302,631.
The gains for Fox News and losses for MSNBC probably aren't surprising considering their political leanings.
Though Democratic President Barack Obama was technically on the ballot in Iowa, the real contest was in the Republican party, where more than half a dozen candidates are tussling to challenge Obama. Romney won by just eight votes over Rick Santorum.
Since Fox leans to the right, it's likely that Republicans turned to the channel in big numbers for Iowa results, while Democrats, who already know their nominee, eschewed MSNBC's coverage.
CNN's numbers are a bit more complicated. The network's ratings have fallen sharply since 2008, when it saw big gains from election coverage, and last year it finished behind MSNBC in primetime.
So while CNN was down from 2008, the network actually celebrated Tuesday's results with a press release yesterday touting its victory over MSNBC.
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