Rachel Maddow’s big reveal Tuesday may be getting some mocking for the drawn-out tease, but a certain amount of savvy went into her promise to disclose (some of) President Donald Trump’s tax returns. And her ratings surged.
The MSNBC host may have secured herself a second weekly win thanks to the night’s big totals: 4.13 million viewers, her biggest audience ever, and a whopping 1.2 rating (1.4 million viewers) in the key news demo of adults 25-54. Ignoring for a moment how well Maddow did against her competition, the viewership stat is the kind that her network rarely sees. It marked a 60 percent surge from her average the week before, easily topping every other cable telecast for the night.
In the key demo, it more than doubles what she brought on the same night last week.
Though her viewership advantages over her time slot foe, Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson, and perennial cable news leader Bill O’Reilly were comparatively smaller, Maddow more than doubled each of their showings in the key news demo. (Carlson and O’Reilly each averaged a .5 rating for the night.)
It’s also worth noting that she scored with younger viewers. Adults 18-49, though not cable news advertisers’ bread and butter, flocked to Maddow. Her 1.0 rating in the younger demo also topped all other cable telecasts for the night.
News of Maddow’s ratings surge arrived a little later than normal on account of delays from measurement house Nielsen Media. And Tuesday’s coup followed a rare weekly ratings win for Maddow, who saw her 9 o’clock show top all other cable news shows among adults 25-54 for the week.
