This article is 5 years old when they ONLY had 54% of the viewership. It is now closer to 70 to 80....
The numbers make clear just how stunning FOX's rise has been. Starting with access to only 17 million homes (compared with CNN's 70 million) in 1996,the news channel would reach 65 million homes by 2001 and had already started to turn a profit. A year later, profits hit $70 million and are expected to double in 2003.Though CNN founder Ted Turner once boasted he'd "squish Murdoch like a bug," FOX News has out-paced its chief cable news rival in the ratings since September 11 and now runs laps around it. This past June, FOX won whopping 51 percent of the prime-time cable news audience--more than CNN, CNN Headline News, and MSNBC combined.