Thursday, June 18, 2026

Ratings: MSNBC Won Thursday Night Over Fox News After Trump Indictment Announced, Maddow Sub Alex Wagner Beat Sean Hannity Handily

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Amazing.

On Thursday night, when the Trump indictment was being read and examined on every cable news show, MSNBC beat Fox News.

Ever more amazing: at 9pm Rachel Maddow substitute Alex Wagner took Sean Hannity by 200,000 viewers with 2.5 million. At 10pm when Maddow joined Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC’s numbers went even higher to over 2.6 million..

At the key gateway for the night. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes out classed Fox by 500,000 viewers.

What’s the take away? In a pinch, viewers were looking for what was really happening as opposed to Fox’s fictitious weaving of alternative facts.

And CNN? Anderson Cooper had two times his normal audience, but came in third.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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