Fox News Channel has restored its ratings dominance in prime time in the wake of the latest shake-up in its schedule four weeks ago.  Sean Hannity moved his nightly show from 10 to 9 P.M. E.T. to challenge MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.  On Monday, October 30, Laura Ingraham and Shannon Bream will complete the channel's reconfiguration of prime time when they start their new shows at 10 and 11 P.M., respectively.

Laura Ingraham.

These changes cap a year of instability for Fox News, following the ouster of the conservative channel's legendary co-founder and CEO, Roger Ailes, in July 2016; the defection to NBC News of prime-time host Megyn Kelly in January 2017; and the firing of the channel's number-one host, Bill O'Reilly, in April 2017.

After a summer of ratings instability, the return of Hannity to 9 P.M., where he started in 1996, has reinforced and stabilized FNC's power position.  In recent months, Hannity has been doing the best reporting of his long career, standing alone in the mainstream media to challenge the dominant and increasingly thin MSM narrative that alleges a Trump-Russia collusion that fixed the 2016 presidential election.

In recent weeks, Hannity has persisted, night after night, in exposing the Democrats' complicity in the real Russia collusion involving Hilary Clinton and the administration of Barack Hussein Obama, which is finally now breaking into the mainstream.

The results of Hannity's and Fox News's provocative programming have led to consistent ratings wins for the past month.  As TVNewser reported on October 24:

Fox News continues to lead the race for basic cable ratings supremacy across total day.

FNC ranked No. 1 in total day viewers for the sixth consecutive week, per Nielsen, and finished No. 4 in total prime time viewers for the second consecutive week. The cable news juggernaut finished behind ALCS-focused Fox Sports 1 (Yankees-Astros) and NLCS-focused TBS (Dodgers-Cubs), as well [as] football-focused ESPN.

Meanwhile, for Monday, October 24, TVNewser headlined its daily cable news ratings report "Sean Hannity ... had cable news's most-watched show Monday night."

On Friday, October 27, the motion picture that Hannity executive-produced, Let There Be Light, premieres in several hundred theaters around the country.  And next Monday, October 30, Ingraham and Bream begin their new shows on FNC, cementing the channel's powerful new prime-time line-up of programs helmed by popular conservative-leaning hosts.

The ongoing cable news wars promise to be very interesting in the weeks ahead.

Peter Barry Chowka is a veteran reporter of news on national politics, media, and popular culture.  His website is AltMedNews.net.  Follow Peter on Twitter.  His recent interview on The Hagmann Report can be watched here.