Last year, 2024, was supposed to see a major audience spike for the major news networks: a presidential election, with Donald Trump a confirmed ratings pick as one of the major players.
While Fox News, MSNBC and CNN saw their ratings rise, the latter two networks saw a significant decline after the election, as political viewers dropped out after Trump's win and Vice President Kamala Harris' loss.
The question in 2025 is whether these regular viewers will return after a break from burnout, as some executives expect, or if their habits shift to other sources, such as ideology-friendly podcasting or digital streaming.
Furthermore, the coming year is likely to see big changes at MSNBC and CNN, as the former prepares to separate itself from parent company Comcast, and the latter undergoes a major overhaul to merge CNN.com and digital video.
Fox News topped primetime, averaging 2.38 million viewers, up 30% from the previous year. MSNBC averaged 1.22 million followers, up 1%, and CNN averaged 685,000 followers, up 18%. In the 25-54 demo, Fox News was up 40% to 294,000 on average, followed by CNN with 147,000, up 17%, and MSNBC with 133,000, up 9%.
In total for the day, Fox News averaged 1.46 million followers, up 21%, followed by MSNBC with 791,000, up 2%, and CNN with 481,000, flat. In the 25-54 demo, Fox News Channel averaged 186,000 followers, up 26%, followed by CNN with 91,000, down 3%, and MSNBC with 84,000. Down 2%.
Since the election, Fox News said it has attracted 72% of its prime-time cable news audience, with MSNBC averaging 576,000 viewers, down 57% from 2024 through Election Day. CNN, 378,000 viewers, down 49%.
For the year, the highest-rated news program was Fox News. The fiveaveraging 3.4 million viewers, followed Jesse Watters Prime Time With 3.1 million Hannity With 2.8 million Gutfeld! With 2.54 million and Ingraham angle With 2.51 million. In width 25-54, Gutfeld! It topped with 355,000, followed by Jesse Watters Prime Time With 352,000, Hannity With 341000, The five With 331,000 and Ingraham angle With 278,000.
MSNBC touted its lead over CNN in total viewers during major news events, including the State of the Union and Election Night. MSNBC said its viewership was 34% higher on average in 2024 than in 2016, despite a 28% drop in pay-TV viewers, and said it had the largest viewership advantage over CNN in the network's history. As for the post-election decline, MSNBC noted that its viewership dropped 42% after the 2016 election, and then went on to have four of the most-watched years in the network's history. The highest rated show on the network in 2024 was The Rachel Maddow ShowIt averaged 2.5 million viewers and 240,000 in the 25-54 demo.
CNN's hosting of the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump was the fifth most-watched program of the year, attracting 52.7 million viewers, despite being simulcast across major networks. The network has been touting its strength on digital platforms, with 147 million monthly unique users worldwide and 117 million in the United States. The top-performing story on CNN.com this year was the exclusive video of Sean “Diddy” Combs physically assaulting Cassie Ventura in a hotel. In 2016. The network's most watched regular series was Anderson Cooper 360, with an average of 748,000.
The numbers, as of Dec. 29, came from Nielsen via Fox News, MSNBC and CNN.
MSNBC and CNN can take some solace in the fact that Fox News also saw a decline in viewers after Donald Trump's defeat in 2020, but saw a rebound with Joe Biden taking office. But the comparisons to 2023 are stark: Last month, MSNBC averaged 660,000 viewers, compared with about 1.3 million in December 2023, as the primary season heated up. The average number of visits to CNN reached 392,000, compared to 505,000 during the same month last year. Fox News Channel's average number of followers was 2.51 million, compared to 1.96 million in December 2023.
In the 25-54 demo, MSNBC averaged 55,000 last month, compared to 114,000 in December 2023, while CNN averaged 69,000, compared to 108,000. Fox News averaged 292,000 visits, compared to 214 thousand in the previous year.
