Fox News’ Megyn Kelly Inches Closer To Bill O’Reilly In Cable News Ratings
Bill O’Reilly once again wins the cable news ratings race in the previous week, although Megyn Kelly is certainly catching up. By averaging the ratings statistics at Zap2It, O’Reilly averaged a higher-than-usual 2.86 million viewers a night. His biggest night was Thursday, when he had 3.24 million viewers (one of O’Reilly’s best nights this year). His lowest (if you can consider it low) was Monday, with 2.6 million viewers.
Megyn Kelly is very close on Bill O’Reilly’s tail. She is already outdoing him in the advertiser-favored demo of 25- to 54-year-old viewers. Overall, Kelly had one of her best weeks all year by averaging 2.5 million viewers a night. Her biggest night was Thursday, with 2.85 million viewers, and her lowest night was Monday, with 2.26 million viewers.
Both O’Reilly and Kelly bashed President Obama this week for his nuclear deal with Iran. Bill O’Reilly began his show Wednesday evening by talking about what he believes is a huge mistake.
“After reading the details of the nuke deal, I can tell you that Iran got the better of the negotiations. The undeniable fact is that the Iranians do not have to submit to snap inspections.”
O’Reilly noted that Iran can cheat if they want to and get away with it. Bill O’Reilly realizes that there are some Americans — and the Israeli government — who would oppose a nuke deal no matter what, but still thinks Barack Obama went about it the wrong way.
On her show, Megyn Kelly talked about a reporter who asked the President why the current hostages in Iran were not part of the negotiations. Kelly had media analyst Howard Kurtz speak in support of the journalist and said it was a valid question, even if Obama appeared thin-skinned. Kelly appeared to agree. She then had Senator Ted Cruz speak up about this issue.
“It was absolutely a fair issue and I’ll tell you what was nonsense — the President’s answer.”
Senator Cruz went on to tell Megyn Kelly that there are four American hostages in Iran held for their Christian faith and held for a journalist exercising his rights.
Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly clobbered their competition at CNN and MSNBC. Anderson Cooper averaged 707,000 viewers a night, while Rachel Maddow averaged 899,000 viewers. Chris Matthews only averaged 657,000 viewers. The upcoming week in cable news will certainly be unpredictable. The only thing practically guaranteed is that Bill O’Reilly will once again be the ratings king.
[Photos by Neilson Barnard and Scott Olson / Getty Images]
