How hot is Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC? Hot enough to post a rare win this week as the top prime-time show on the cable news networks among the viewers most sought by advertisers.
It may have been for only one night - Tuesday night - indeed, by Wednesday night, Fox News returned to pre-eminence in the 8 and 9 p.m. hours. Still, MSNBC has been riding a hot rating hand in recent weeks, and especially over the last three days in the wake of the release of the Mitt Romney fund-raising video.
That surreptitiously recorded tape, which showed Mr. Romney discussing - and apparently dismissing - almost half the electorate as victims without any personal responsibility, seems to have fueled a surge in viewing for MSNBC, a network that wears its pro-Democratic views on its sleeve as much as Fox News does for the Republican side.
On Monday, when Fox News ignored the story for most of its prime-time coverage, MSNBC started to show a boost in its ratings among the 25-to-54-year-old viewers who determine most of the ad sales in news programming. By Tuesday, when the story became the center of political discussion for the day, a flood of extra viewers turned to MSNBC, and especially Ms. Maddow.
She has become, in the centerpiece 9 p.m. hour, the star attraction for the channel, and the results of late have been on a sharp upswing. Her average audience for the year in the 25-54 age group is about 250,000. But for the month of September, until this week, it had jumped to 453,000.
On Tuesday night, the numbers exploded. Ms. Maddow attracted 703,000 viewers in that advertiser-preferred group, meaning she was able to post an extremely rare win over all the Fox News hosts for that one night. (She is not head to head against the dominant ratings leader, Bill O'Reilly, so it is not a direct comparison, but that night Mr. O'Reilly was just behind with 682,000 viewer s in that audience segment.)
Ms. Maddow was well ahead Tuesday night of her direct Fox News competitor, Sean Hannity, who pulled in 513,000 viewers in the 25-54 group.
The standings shifted Wednesday with Mr. Hannity back ahead with 645,000 viewers in that group, to 521,000 for Ms. Maddow. And, as always, Fox News continued to have big advantages among total viewers on all three nights.
But the news of late has clearly been good for MSNBC, both in the ratings and apparently in the presidential race. The home-team effect, which can be seen in how well Fox News does on nights of the Republican convention versus how well MSNBC does during the Democratic convention, is likely at play. With so much attention this week on Mr. Romney's comments, and how they might negatively affect his chances, MSNBC executives concede that additional partisan Democratic viewers are likely to have tuned in to their network.
MSNBC's prime-time shows seem to have enjoyed a bou nce from the Romney tape, with all three up significantly. Competitively, that has been a boon especially to the 10 p.m. host, Lawrence O'Donnell, who has been much closer to - and occasionally ahead of - Greta Van Susteren on Fox.
On Tuesday, Mr. O'Donnell was well ahead with 535,000 viewers in the 25-54 category, to 383,000 for Ms. Van Susteren. On Wednesday he stayed ahead with 531,000, to 458,000 for the Fox host.
As the furor over the tape subsides, the bounce for MSNBC may subside as well. But the election season, with its additional interest for partisan political viewers, has pumped up that network in general. Its margin over the now hopelessly trailing CNN has never been bigger.
On Wednesday night from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., MSNBC averaged 500,000 viewers in the 25-54 group, behind Fox's average of 579,000. CNN wasn't even halfway to either with just 207,000. In total viewers, Fox was well out in front with 2.73 million; MSNBC had 1.62 million; CNN bar ely managed a third of that with 652,000.
Bill Carter writes about the television industry. Follow @wjcarter on Twitter.
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