Maddow's best ratings came during the 2008 presidential election, and MSNBC execs are banking 2012 will produce a similar lift.
Virginia Sherwood/NBCRachel Maddow scored one of the first big wins of the 2012 election last week.
After four years on MSNBC, her show pulled a higher average among the all-important adults 25-54 demographic than her Fox News Channel competition, Sean Hannity.
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Monday through Friday, Maddow averaged 567,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo. That’s 13 percent higher than Hannity’s 500,000. (Both shows more than doubled Piers Morgan’s CNN showing of 198,000.) Maddow can thank a Friday rebound for the stronger figure. She had topped Hannity on Monday and Tuesday, but lost her advantage during the middle of the week.
Though Maddow did see several wins over her 9 p.m. rival during holiday weeks in 2008, this is the first since Hannity went solo in January 2009, ditching former co-host Alan Colmes.
The liberal-skewing host’s strong performance coincides with coverage of the unflattering leaked tape that brought a lot of media attention on Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney. On Tuesday and Friday, Maddow also bested Fox News Channel’s 8 p.m. broadcast of the perennially dominant The O’Reilly Factor.
For its primetime block, MSNBC posted its strongest demo numbers since Januaruy 2009. FNC was still on top — albeit by a smaller margin than normal. FNC topped the week with 509,000 adults 25-54 over MSNBC’s 489,000. In viewers, FNC had an advantage of nearly one million viewers with 2.43 million.
