Fox News’ primetime ratings continue to tumble after the departure of longtime host Bill O’Reilly.
The once impregnable primetime lineup built by the late Roger Ailes, and torn asunder by the Murdoch brothers, finished third in the advertiser-coveted A25-54 demo last week. The last time that happened was June 9, 2000.
After Fox fired O’Reilly amidst charges of sexual harassment, it reshuffled its primetime lineup, moving Tucker Carlson—who was holding his own, battling Rachel Maddow at 9 p.m.—into O’Reilly’s 8 p.m. slot, and The Five from 5 p.m.—where it was easily beating the competition—to 9 p.m., only to be slaughtered by Maddow and giving rise to MSNBC.
Even though Fox was a close second in total viewers to MSNBC for the week of May 15-19 (2,440,000 to 2,405,000), it trailed both MSNBC and CNN in the demo with 497,000 viewers to MSNBC’s 611,00 and CNN’s 589,000.
MSNBC and CNN have been trying to find the chink in Fox News’ ratings armor for years, and it looks like they have finally found it.
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