Rachel Maddow Is On One Night A Week But She Still Beat Sean Hannity In August

Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show only airs on Monday night, but she still drew more viewers than Fox News’s Sean Hannity.

MSNBC said in a press release to PoliticusUSA on the August ratings:

“The Rachel Maddow Show” (Monday 9pm; 2.9M viewers*) ranked #2 among all primetime original cable programs in August, ahead of FOX News’ “Hannity” (2.8M) and HBO’s “House of the Dragon” (2.6M). “The Rachel Maddow Show” averaged 317K viewers* in the A25-54 demo (vs. CNN’s 178K).

The premiere of “Alex Wagner Tonight” (Tuesday 8/16 at 9pm) averaged 2.0M total viewers and 183K A25-54, beating CNN in both demos. During its first two weeks, “Alex Wagner Tonight” (1.7M) more than doubled CNN’s 9pm audience (754K). 

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Rachel Maddow’s show hasn’t slowed down since moving to one night a week.  The good news continued for MSNBC as Alex Wagner’s viewership represented an improvement of over 500,000 compared to the rotating guest hosts that the network was using before Wagner’s show debuted.

It is debatable if Hannity is harmed by running more shows per month than Maddow or if this gives him an advantage.

However, Maddow is a cable news juggernaut and the only person on CNN or MSNBC who can compete with Fox News. Viewers haven’t left Rachel Maddow since she moved to one night a week. Maddow’s audience has followed her to the new schedule, and they are showing up in numbers that Fox News can’t defeat.

Rachel Maddow hasn’t lost her appeal to viewers since moving to one night a week. She may even be more popular than ever before.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association