‘Larry King’ Loses to Fox for First Time

CNN’s last stronghold against the growing strength of Fox News Channel has fallen: “Larry King Live,” CNN’s top-rated program, has lost for the first time to the Fox show that airs at the same time, “Hannity & Colmes.”

Fox already beats CNN handily in prime time, but now the domination extends even to the AOL-Time Warner Inc. subsidiary’s flagship show.

This month, the Fox program has drawn an average of 1.65 million viewers to King’s 1.58 million, according to Nielsen Media Research. Among top-rated cable news programs in prime time, “King” fell from second to fourth, with Fox’s “The O’Reilly Factor” first (averaging 2.52 million viewers), “Hannity & Colmes” second and “Fox Report With Shepard Smith” third (1.59 million).

CNN said, “Larry King continues to be invaluable for CNN. His show gains more than 400,000 viewers from its lead-in, while ‘Hannity & Colmes’ loses almost a million viewers a night from its ‘O’Reilly’ lead-in. Larry King continues to do great and was up 20% in October from September,” with guests that included Madonna.

-- Elizabeth Jensen