Fox News Doubles Its Midterm Ratings From 2006

NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News Channel more than doubled the audience it had for the 2006 midterm election.

The Nielsen Co. said Wednesday that just under 7 million people watched Fox's election coverage Tuesday night, a rough night for President Barack Obama. In 2006, which was a rough night for President George W. Bush, the network had 3.1 million viewers.

CNN had 2.4 million viewers on Tuesday night, while MSNBC had 1.9 million. Nielsen had no immediate estimate of the audience for the broadcast networks, promising it for Thursday.

Each of the cable networks had a smaller audience than in 2008, when Obama was elected. The difference was most stark at CNN, which had an election night audience of 12.3 million two years ago.