Megyn Kelly isn’t the Fox News anchor of liberals’ dreams, but it appears as though she doesn’t need bipartisan cross-over appeal to post monster ratings. According to the latest Nielsen numbers, her new show is already the second-most-watched on cable news after only one month on the air. The Los Angeles Times:
“The Kelly File” averaged 2.2 million total viewers for October, behind only “The O’Reilly Factor” (2.8 million), according to Nielsen. (The ratings measurement company ends its month a little sooner than most people’s calendars do.)
Kelly, a longtime anchor for Fox News, took over the 9 p.m. slot from Sean Hannity, who moved to 10 p.m. as part of a broader network shake-up. Bill O’Reilly remained in place at 8 p.m. Kelly appears to have already improved on Hannity’s numbers. As recently as August, he was averaging 1.6 million total viewers. However, October was a fairly high-traffic period for cable news, given concern over the government shutdown.
Overall, Fox News still has a strangelhold on cable news’ prime-time race, averaging 1.9 million total viewers compared to MSNBC’s 780,000 and CNN’s 525,000.
If you haven’t read it yet, now’s a good time to check out my colleague Willa Paskin’s great The Kelly File review, which tackles the dueling legends of Megyn Kelly: “Kelly the unflappable, impeccable Fox News star, and Kelly the unflappable, impeccable Fox News star who maybe knows Fox News is crazy.”
