Fox News, Sean Hannity Both Grab Big Wins to Mark the End of the Year

For the second year in a row, Fox News was the most-watched cable television network in 2017.

The news channel averaged 2.4 million viewers in prime-time and 1.5 million viewers in total day, according to Deadline.

2017 marked the most watched year in history for Fox News, with a slight increase in its daytime audience.

Sean Hannity’s show was the network’s most popular segment with almost 3.2 million viewers nightly. “Hannity” also tied MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” for the year’s top news program in the 18-49 demographic. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” beat CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” in the younger crowd.

CNN ranked number five in terms of daytime viewership of basic cable networks, with an average of 780,000 viewers and over 1 million viewers in prime time. Trump frequently criticizes CNN for allegedly reporting fake news.

CNN’S slogan is CNN, THE MOST TRUSTED NAME IN NEWS. Everyone knows this is not true, that this could, in fact, be a fraud on the American Public. There are many outlets that are far more trusted than Fake News CNN. Their slogan should be CNN, THE LEAST TRUSTED NAME IN NEWS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2017

The morning show hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade of “Fox & Friends” topped Mediaite‘s list of the “75 most influential in news media 2017.” President Donald Trump congratulated the show on Twitter.

Was @foxandfriends just named the most influential show in news? You deserve it – three great people! The many Fake News Hate Shows should study your formula for success!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2017

CNN’s president Jeff Zucker ranked second most influential in Mediaite’s list, despite Trump’s constant criticisms of the network. In a November tweet, Trump claimed that Fox News is more important than CNN.

.@FoxNews is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 25, 2017

Primetime hosts Megyn Kelly and Bill O’Reilly left Fox News earlier this year. Kelly started a new position as an anchor for NBC News and O’Reilly was fired amid sexual assault allegations.

Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham have replaced Kelly and O’Reilly as Fox’s prime-time hosts.

Fox News and Hannity also lead other news outlets in terms of mentions, retweets and likes on Twitter, The Western Journal reported in early December.

More info from @twitter in 2017 — pic.twitter.com/iDOcCjC2RN

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 5, 2017

The graphic displays the top 10 most-tweeted about news outlets and their respective reporters.

The New York Times, MSNBC and The Washington Post were also ranked among the top five news outlets on Twitter.

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