Sean Hannity Lands #1 in Ratings, CNN's Tapper Takes Distant 3rd with Biden and 'The Rock' Interviews
Fox News host Sean Hannity is in strong command of audiences in his 9 p.m. time slot on cable news.
The Fox host dominated his competition on Tuesday night as CNN personality Jake Tapper made his primetime debut.
Hannity scored higher ratings than the 9 p.m. CNN and MSNBC shows combined, according to Mediaite.
Even sit-down interviews with President Joe Biden and actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson weren’t enough to put Tapper over the top.
Biden rarely grants interviews to the media, having given only 10 at a point in his tenure last year when former President Donald Trump had given 57.
Tapper was taking his first crack at a nighttime show after his predecessor Don Lemon was ushered out of the timeframe.
The establishment media personality asked hard questions of Biden in some instances while generally shying away from the state of the economy and illegal immigration.
Hannity’s Tuesday broadcast drew more than 2.6 million viewers, Mediaite reported.
The combined viewership of Tapper’s CNN night debut and MSNBC’s Alex Wagner totaled 2.44 million.
Tapper’s White House interview couldn’t even draw 1 million viewers. It clocked in with an audience of 854,000.
That was enough for third place — landing Tapper behind Wagner, MSNBC’s replacement for Rachel Maddow.
Wagner’s audience of 1.59 million was significantly larger than Tapper’s.
Fox’s Tucker Carlson dominated his competition even more thoroughly than Hannity did without a White House interview on another network to deal with in his 8 p.m. time slot.
Carlson drew a whopping 3.42 million viewers on Tuesday, with CNN’s Anderson Cooper and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes performing worse than their 9 p.m. successors by comparison, according to Mediaite.
Fox has come out on top as establishment media news channels struggle to remain relevant in the post-President Donald Trump era.
Late-night Fox host Greg Gutfeld has made television history, with the audience of his cable show regularly dwarfing that of his broadcast television competitors.
CNN’s lackluster ratings have spurred a makeover of the establishment news channel.
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