Meanwhile, liberal MSNBC came in third place with an average of 1.75 million viewers during the same 12 months, while CNN fell far behind its rivals, arriving in 22nd place with an audience of only 972,000 per night.

According to an article posted on Monday by Joe Concha, a media reporter and columnist for The Hill newspaper, the numbers came from Nielsen Media Research, which stated that ESPN drew an audience of 1.75 million to end the year in second place.

Concha also noted that this victory by Fox marked the channel’s fourth straight year of dominance in the cable news market.