Fox News is on the upswing, while MS NOW and CNN are falling off. It would be unsurprising for "news" networks to lose audience after a presidential campaign year, but Fox's success makes the others look worse. Overall, Fox News scored its highest ratings for the year ever for a non-election year, second only to 2020.
According to Nielsen Media Research, released on December 15, Fox News averaged 2.72 million primetime viewers and 287,000 viewers in the key adults 25-54 demographic in 2025. This was up 14 per cent in total viewers and 18 per cent in the demo compared to last year.
In comparison, MSNBC (now MS NOW) averaged 923,000 total viewers (down 25 per cent on 2024) and 81,000 demo viewers (down 39 per cent), and CNN averaged 580,000 total viewers (down 15 per cent) and 105,000 demo viewers (down 29 per cent).
The story was the same in total day numbers. Fox News came out on top with 1.7 million viewers (up 18 per cent on 2024) and 185,000 demo viewers (down 1 per cent). CNN averaged 436,000 viewers (down 9 per cent) and 71,000 demo viewers (down 22 per cent), while MS NOW averaged 552,000 viewers (down 30 per cent) and 49,000 demo viewers (down 42 per cent).
The only thing that can be said for MS NOW is that it’s doing better than CNN in overall viewers, but it managed to do worse than CNN in the demo. You can't look at declines of 30 percent and/or 42 percent and think optimistically about the future. MS NOW also posted its worst year in the demo and in primetime ratings since its first full year on the air in 1997. With just 552,000 total day viewers, this was MS NOW’s worst year since 2015. The rebrand is not helping!
The Five made history marking the fourth consecutive year it has topped cable news with viewers, delivering its best year ever with 4.1 million viewers and 382,000 in the 25-54 demo.
Fox News is so popular that it also held a higher weekday primetime average than broadcast network NBC, with 3.2 million viewers compared to NBC’s 3.1 million viewers. The cable news channel was only slightly behind CBS (3.208 million viewers) and ABC (3.4 million viewers). This is what happens when broadcast TV is ignored by many younger Americans.
