High-Rated Kelly File In Close Competition With MSNBC's Rachel Maddow

According to Adweek’s Scoreboard, The Kelly File, hosted by Fox News personality Megyn Kelly, has been in a tight competition for ratings with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.

Among the 25-54 age demographic, The Rachel Maddow Show nearly tied Kelly in total viewership Wednesday, with 400,000 viewers to Kelly’s 401,000.

This is third time in the month of August where Maddow has either tied or surpassed Kelly among the 25-54 age bracket.

“Maddow also beat Kelly File in the demo on Monday, August 15 (428-416) and on Thursday, August 4 (493-485),” reported Breitbart.

The Fox News Channel show still overtook Maddow in overall viewers with 500,000, but according to Breitbart, the 25-54 demographic is particularly important because of its high value to advertisers.

Although the close competition comes while Kelly is taking time off as host for vacation, The Kelly File far surpassed Maddow’s show while Kelly was on vacation this time last year.

In August 2015, The Kelly File pulled 453,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo to Maddow’s 174,000.

MSNBC as a network has also enjoyed a summer surge in viewership.

While Fox News is still America’s most watched cable news network, MSNBC was able to beat out CNN in the second quarter of 2016 for total viewership in prime time, as well as besting CNN in the key demographic.

Maddow’s show airs at 9:00 p.m. and has bested CNN at the same hour for the last 38 consecutive months in total viewers.

“July marked MSNBC’s most-watched month in nearly four years … And it wasn’t just Maddow’s show outperforming expectations; All in with Chris Hayes and The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell also saw big gains over last year,” Breitbart reported.

The network has also fared well during this year’s election cycle, beating out both Fox News and CNN in coverage of the Democratic National Convention.

Some on Twitter argued the report means little in light of Kelly’s typically high ratings:

. @BreitbartNews .. we know you don’t like @megynkelly but she DOMINATES ratings except for a few fluky nights. https://t.co/kjZTUInNfN

— Brian Flood (@briansflood) August 19, 2016

Another said the low numbers were due to Kelly’s past comments concerning Republican nominee Donald Trump:

You attack Trump, your ratings go in the toilet. Fact of life.

Maddow catches Megyn: https://t.co/mOGyEPa3mf

— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) August 19, 2016

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