Super Tuesday Ratings Down From 2008; Fox News Outperforms NBC, Cable Competition

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Fox News Channel and Mitt Romney both have reason to be pleased this Wednesday.

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Peaking at around 3 million viewers, Nielsen Media Research gives FNC an average of 2.6 million viewers during the highly-watched hour between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m. ET. That figure tops MSNBC and CNN's totals (a close 1.47 and 1.46 million, respectively) and edges out the night's only broadcast competition, NBC (2.56 million).

For the full primetime block (between 8:00 and 11:00 p.m.), FNC (2.84 million viewers) nearly matched MSNBC (1.49 million) CNN (1.37 million) combined.

Still, those numbers do mark drops across the board from 2008 Super Tuesday coverage. Viewers dropped 5 percent for Fox, 33 percent with MSNBC and a whopping 60 percent on CNN.

Compared to last Tuesday's election coverage, all networks were up roughly 50 percent between 8:00 and 11:00 p.m.