A `super' Tuesday for CNN (AP)

NEW YORK - The Ohio and Texas primaries turned out to be more super than Super Tuesday for CNN.

The cable news network averaged nearly 3.7 million prime-time viewers Tuesday, outdistancing its rivals and capturing a larger audience than the Super Tuesday primaries of Feb. 5, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Fox News Channel had just under 3 million viewers and MSNBC had 2 million as viewers continued to show strong interest in the campaign. The cable networks benefited from the absence of ABC, CBS and NBC, which had live coverage of Super Tuesday returns but stuck with entertainment programming this week.

On typical nights, CNN trails Fox in viewers. But for Super Tuesday, New Hampshire and Potomac primary coverage, CNN has risen to the top, Nielsen said.

Both CNN and MSNBC beat Fox Tuesday in prime time among viewers aged 25 to 54, the demographic group most sought after by advertisers in news programming. CNN had just under 1.6 million viewers in that demographic, MSNBC had 876,000 and Fox 830,000, Nielsen.