The Fox News Channel continued to lead cable ratings in the total viewer category for another week, according to new figures from Nielsen Media Research.

Figures for the week of April 14 through April 20 show FNC reaching 3.1m viewers in primetime, and averaging 1.82m in total day. CNN comes in with 1.76m during primetime and 1.1m in total day. MSNBC falls off the top ten grid for primetime, but scrapes in with 616,000 viewers during total day, Cynopsis shows.

Nielsen figures do however show that overall demand for cable news is dropping; when figures for FNC, CNN, CNN Headline News, and MSNBC are combined and compared to the previous week, a 41% drop is registered in total day viewers; in primetime this is a 31% drop from the previous week.

There are also signs that the 18-49 demographic have, after enjoying a binge on news during the Iraq conflict, gone back in search of entertainment on cable. AOL Time Warner's TNT leads the pack in total day and primetime viewer figures in the 18-49 category; although it should be noted, FNC follows in a not-too-distant second.