FNC put out a release concerning the October ratings period…

FOX News Channel (FNC) continued its dominance throughout the month of October 2006, celebrating its 10th anniversary with an historic 250 week consecutive winning streak in cable news, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The network marked the 250 week milestone from 10/09/06 to 10/15/06. CNN has not beaten FNC for a seven day period in the ratings since the week ending December 30, 2001. During the full month of October, FNC averaged 786,000 viewers (down 17%) in Total Day to beat CNN (490,000/down 8%) and MNSBC (286,000/up 13%) combined. In Primetime, FNC again beat the competition combined with 1,291,000 viewers (down 25%), while CNN garnered 720,000 viewers (down 13%) and MSNBC attracted 418,000 viewers (up 16%).

In the 25-54 demo for October, FNC again maintained its lead with a Primetime average of 355,000 (down 9%), while CNN had just 227,000 (down 1%) and MSNBC averaged 164,000 (up 15%). In Total Day, FNC led with an average of 260,000 (down 2%), while CNN averaged 177,000 (up 15%) and MSNBC averaged 125,000 (up 34%).

FNC also captured nine of the top 10 shows in cable news during October. The O’Reilly Factor remained the most watched program in the genre with 2,052,000 viewers. Rounding out the top five were: Hannity & Colmes with 1,443,000 viewers; The Fox Report w/ Shepard Smith with 1,291,000 viewers; Special Report w/ Brit Hume with 1267,000 viewers, and On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren with 1,135,000 viewers. Larry King hovered at just over one million viewers (1,005,000) and remained CNN’s only entry among the top ten cable news programs.

Several of CNN President Jon Klein’s signature programs were victims of the network’s October losses, including, American Morning (down 22%); The Situation Room (down 13% at 7pm), Paula Zahn Now (down 24%) and the overexposed Anderson Cooper 360 (down 5%).