O’Reilly Trounces Olbermann in Ratings
Monday, June 23, 2008 1:09 PM
By: Jim Meyers Article Font Size
The liberal press crowed loudly when cable TV’s Keith Olbermann beat out Bill O’Reilly in a key demographic during a recent week, but Olbermann’s ratings success has been isolated and press reports about it have been much overblown, Newsmax has learned.
MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” did average 477,000 viewers in the age 25 to 54 demographic during the first week of June, narrowly edging out Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” which averaged 472,000 in that demo, according to Nielsen Media Research.
“This marks the first time that MSNBC has beaten Fox News in O’Reilly’s 8 p.m. time slot,” the left-wing Huffington Post screamed. But in fact, O’Reilly and Olbermann squared off against each other on only three days that week.
On Tuesday, the cable stations covered that day’s primaries, and on Friday, O’Reilly was on vacation, with Laura Ingraham filling in.
Ratings for “The Factor” dip when O’Reilly is not the host.
The viewership figures touted by The Huffington Post include Friday’s results. But on the three days when Olbermann and O’Reilly were both on, “The Factor” won the 25 to 54 demographic with an average of 503,000 viewers compared to 491,000 for “Countdown,” Nielsen reported. And O’Reilly continues to trounce Olbermann in total viewers.
For example on those three days O’Reilly and Olbermann went head to head, O’Reilly drew an average of 2,193,000 per night to Olbermann’s mediocre 1,031,000.
May 2008 marked the 90th consecutive month that “The Factor” was the leading program on cable news, averaging 2,497,000 viewers a night, while “Countdown” had less than half that many, 1,098,000.
O’Reilly also beat out Olbermann in the 25 to 54 demographic for the month, averaging 534,000 viewers to 408,000 for “Countdown.”
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
