After weeks of speculation amidst a plethora of out-of-the-box conspiracy theories, Kate Middleton reemerged in the public spotlight on the afternoon of Friday, Mar. 22 for the first time since her abdominal surgery back in Dec. 2023, In a brief video, which aired on several cable news outlets like CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, Middleton indicated she has cancer and will be undergoing chemotherapy to treat it.
The likely top outlet to broadcast this breaking news, which occurred at 2 p.m. Eastern on March 22, was CBS. Although official daytime ratings for the broadcast networks were not made available at publish time, the network was airing a first-round NCAA men’s basketball tournament game between Northwestern and Florida Atlantic (the year-ago Friday game in this same early timeslot USC/Michigan State drew 4.06 million viewers on Mar. 17, 2023) until it interrupted that telecast with the Middleton news.
On cable, usual afternoon leader Fox News Channel was tops again on this particular Friday Friday, Mar. 22, delivering 1.35 million viewers from 2-3 p.m. and then 1.14 million viewers at 3-4 p.m., according to Nielsen Media Research. MSNBC was a distant runner-up with 740,000 viewers from 1-3 p.m. then jumped up to 974,000 viewers at 3-4 p.m.
Although CNN drew 690,000 in the 2 p.m. hour, it was the only major cable news outlet to grow within the same Friday timeslot compared to its previous five Fridays (Feb. 16 & 23, and Mar. 1, 8 & 15 at 2-3 p.m.), up by two percent; Fox News was down 12 percent (from 1.53 million) and MSNBC down 18 percent (from 901,000).
CNN then posted 653,000 at 3-4 p.m. on Mar. 22.
Compared to the prior Friday (Mar. 15), both CNN and MSNBC grew while Fox News did not:
- CNN 2-3 p.m.: 690,000 viewers (+22%), 90,000 adults 25-54 (+41%)
- CNN 3-4 p.m.: 653,000 viewers (+29%), 86,000 adults 25-54 (+36%)
- MSNBC 2-3 p.m.: 740,000 viewers (+8%), 75,000 adults 25-54 (-7%)
- MSNBC 3-4 p.m.: 974,000 viewers (+18%), 95,000 adults 25-54 (+4%)
- Fox News 2-3 p.m.: 1,349,000 viewers (-3%), 157,000 adults 25-54 (+8%)
- Fox News 3-4 p.m.: 1,140,000 viewers (-24%), 110,000 adults 25-54 (-32%)
