Fox News unseated USA as the top-rated cable network in primetime for the week ending Jan. 24. Fox News averaged 3.21 million viewers edging out USA which logged 3.19 million.
It was a busy news week with Haiti continuing to dominate headlines. But it was Fox News' coverage of Republican Scott Brown's victory in the Jan. 19 special election in Massachusetts that helped propel the network into the No. 1 spot. More than 6 million viewers watched FNC in primetime on election night, according to Nielsen.
CNN was 22nd in primetime last week. MSNBC was ranked 25th.
CNN spent much more airtime covering Haiti than either Fox News or MSNBC, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism's news coverage index for the week of Jan. 18-24.
Fox News and MSNBC spent one-sixth of their airtime on the story. But CNN dedicated 60% of its airtime to the devastation in Haiti, said PEJ. Indeed, the network has kept its star correspondents Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, in Haiti the longest.
