Fox News Beats Both CNN and MS NOW Combined in July Ratings

Fox News once again pulled in more viewers than MS NOW and CNN combined in July, according to new Nielsen ratings data. The right-leaning channel averaged 2.33 million primetime viewers Monday-Sunday this month — which was 39% more than MS NOW (1.02 million) and CNN (658,000) put together.

The gap was similar when looking at total day ratings, with Fox News averaging 1.499 million total viewers, while MS NOW pulled in 636,000 total viewers and CNN averaged 465,000 Monday-Sunday.

On the bright side for CNN, the channel posted a 5% increase in primetime ratings compared to June 2026; MS NOW was flat year-over-year, and Fox’s primetime ratings were up 3% compared to last year.

The really bad news for MS NOW was the coveted 25-54  age demo took a decent hit.

Here’s how each channel performed in the demo:

Primetime 

Fox News: 204,000 (up 4% vs June)

CNN: 102,000 (up 3% vs June)

MS NOW: 89,000 (down 7% vs June)

Total Day

Fox News: 137,000 (up 3% vs June)

CNN: 62,000 (down 2% vs June)

MS NOW: 57,000 (down 7% vs June)

MS NOW and CNN execs shouldn’t take the drubbing too hard, though.

Fox News also beat the broadcast networks when it came to weekday primetime in July, averaging 2.60 million viewers — topping NBC (2.50 million), ABC (2.30 million), and CBS (1.9 million). But one thing “in defense” of the broadcast networks is their evening newscasts run before primetime and bring in a larger audience.

And a quick word on NewsNation: the channel revamped its lineup six months ago, and the move is paying off. Katie Pavlich’s 10:00 p.m. show is up 10% compared to the same time slot last year, averaging 102,000 total viewers over the last month, and Jesse Weber’s new show at 11:00 p.m. gave NewsNation a 46% year-over-year boost; Jesse Weber Live averaged 76,000 viewers in July.

The top performer for Fox News — and all of cable news, for that matter — was The Five, which averaged 3.31 million viewers and 300,000 in the demo.

Two of the show’s co-hosts grabbed the silver and bronze medals for the month, with Jesse Watters Primetime averaging 2.98 million viewers and Gutfeld! averaging 2.63 million; Jesse Watters averaged 267,000 in the demo while Greg Gutfeld’s show pulled in 249,000.

In fourth and fifth place: Sean Hannity’s show (2.55 million/238,000 demo) and Bret Baier’s Special Report (2.52 million/224,000 demo)

And in related news, The Five just celebrated its 15th birthday with a fairly nice surprise: new data showed the nightly talk show is the most-watched daily news program among Democrats.

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