Cable News Ratings: November Reign for Fox News Channel

November was a busy month for cable news, with the precipitously falling stock market and accelerating presidential campaigns.

Fox News Channel showed gains in the morning with Fox & Friends, which was up 19% compared with November 2006, averaging 934,000 viewers.

CNN’s American Morning, meanwhile, dropped 17 % (396,000 viewers), and MSNBC without Don Imus fared even worse. Morning Joe was down 34% compared with last November, when Imus in the Morning was in the slot.

CNN Headline News’ Robin & Company, although still in fourth place in the morning, is gaining on MSNBC, growing 27% year-to-year and coming within several-thousand viewers (241,000 versus 249,000) of Morning Joe, based on live Nielsen Media Research numbers.

CNBC’s Squawk Box also posted significant gains, growing 42% to an average of 225,000 viewers.

In primetime, Fox News’ TheO’Reilly Factor was up 11% to 2.3 million viewers in the 8 p.m. hour. CNN dropped 7% to 633,000 million viewers and third place in the time slot with Out in Open, the interim news hour between the canceled Paula Zahn Now and Campbell Brown’s forthcoming show, which is targeted to bow in February.

MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann was up 15% (793,000 viewers) to second place in the hour behind O’Reilly. On Headline News, Nancy Grace was up 22% to 597,000 viewers.

At 9 p.m., Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes was flat (1.45 million viewers) compared with November 2006, while CNN’s Larry King Live and MSNBC’s Scarborough Country were both down 16% to 963,000 and 420,000 viewers, respectively.

At 10 p.m., On the Record with Greta Van Susteren inched up 5% to 1.2 million viewers, while the first hour of AndersonCooper 360 dropped 13% to 738,000 viewers.