Fox News Dominates Ratings in 2023, As Cable News Suffers Viewership Declines
AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura
The cable news industry had an undeniably rough 2023, ending the tumultuous year with fewer eyeballs as cord-cutting continues to limit linear reach into American households and alternative news sources grab viewers.
Fox News closed out the year on top, extending its reign as the most-watched cable television network for the 8th consecutive year. The network scored the top six shows in the cable news industry with The Five becoming the first non-prime time show to land at number one in both the key 25 to 54 age demographic and in total viewers. 2023 also marked Fox’s 22nd year in a row leading cable news in both total viewers and the demo in both total day and prime time viewers.
MSNBC was the only network to grow year over year in total viewers and solidified its spot as the second most-watched network on cable behind Fox with strong ratings for prime time hosts like Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell. MSNBC’s Morning Joe as well as early evening hosts Nicolle Wallace and Ari Melber also continue to be major ratings draws for the network, which benefited from Trump-heavy news cycles and former president’s ongoing legal dramas.
CNN, which changed leadership this year, has yet to see its ratings rebound and ended the year with its lowest numbers in total viewers since 2014 – hitting an all-time low in the demo. CNN did however top MSNBC in the demo for the tenth consecutive year in total day and the fourth year in a row in prime time, which also highlights MSNBC’s long struggle with demo viewers.
MSNBC, which had its lowest-rated year in the demo since 1999, has the oldest audience of the big three cable news networks, with viewers averaging 70 in the fourth quarter of the year. Fox’s average viewer is 69, while CNN’s is 67 — up from 60 in 2017. S&P Global Market Intelligence data puts Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC in only 70 million homes in the U.S. today, which is down from 90 million in 2016 as the cable business continues to contract.
Fox made headlines at the beginning of the year as it settled its lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems for a whopping $787 million and soon after fired the top-rated host in cable news, Tucker Carlson – who has now taken his shtick to Elon Musk’s X, where he has openly embraced far-right conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones. Fox relaunched its prime time lineup in July, moving Jesse Watters into Carlson’s old 8 p.m. time slot.
While Fox has remained atop the industry, the network saw an 18 percent drop in year-over-year total viewers from 1.49 million to 1.2 million – its lowest total viewership since 2015. MSNBC averaged 784,000 total day viewers, up from 733,000 the year before. CNN, meanwhile, averaged 482,000 total day viewers, a 15 percent drop from 2022’s 568,000 average viewers.
In the total day demo, MSNBC was up 5 percent with 87,000 total average viewers – landing in third. CNN was in second with 95,000 – a 22 percent drop year over year. Fox led the pack with 150,000 total average viewers – a 34 percent drop from the previous year.
Fox’s The Five brought in 2.9 million total viewers and 303,000 demo viewers to top the charts. Jesse Watters came in second with 2.5 million total viewers and saw 255,000 demo viewers. Sean Hannity scored 2.4 million total viewers, but landed in second overall in the demo with 217,000 demo viewers. Bret Baier was the only other cable news show to average over 2 million viewers for the year and landed in fourth place overall followed by Laura Ingraham, who continues to be the most-watched woman on cable news. Greg Gutfeld landed in sixth place in total viewers.
Fox also scored big this year with its two GOP presidential primary debates, Hannity’s Newsom-DeSantis showdown, and its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, which has helped to boost the network’s ratings in the latter half of the year. Notably, Fox is up in major cities since the war began in October and has seen double-digit growth in the top four U.S. markets: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia. In New York City, Fox shot up 42 percent in the younger demo, overtaking CNN and MSNBC in the market.
MSNBC’s 9 pm time slot, shared by Maddow who hosts on Mondays, and Alex Wagner who hosts the rest of the week, landed in 7th place overall – followed by O’Donnell in 8th place. Maddow averaged 2.4 million total viewers for the year, leading the network and lifting the time slot into the top ten. MSNBC’s Wallace, Melber, Chris Hayes, and Joy Reid all landed in the top 20 for the year – with their shows ranking in that order.
CNN’s top-rated program was Anderson Cooper 360, which was the 29th most-watched show on cable news bringing in 743,000 total average viewers – Cooper landed at 17th overall in the demo. Erin Burnett, Jake Tapper, Wolf Blitzer, and Kaitlin Collins hosted CNN’s other top-rated shows – ranking in that order.
Cable news upstart NewsNation saw its audience increase in 2023 by some 71 percent in prime time and 37 percent in total day after launching 24/5 news coverage in May of this year. Newsmax, which like NewsNation has a much smaller audience than the big three, saw its prime time ratings grow some 22 percent for the year — temporarily boosted by Carlson’s firing. Newsmax’s Eric Bolling even managed to beat his CNN competition a few times this year.
As for the three cable news networks overall, here are the total day averages in total viewers and the 25-54 demo for 2023
Total viewers:
CNN: 479,000
Fox News: 1.21 million
MSNBC: 780,000
25-54 Demo:
CNN: 94,000
Fox News: 149,000
MSNBC: 87,000
Here are the prime time averages — encompassing shows which air from 8-11 p.m. — in total viewers and the 25-54 demo for 2023.
Total viewers:
CNN: 582,000
Fox News: 1.85 million
MSNBC: 1.22 million
25-54 Demo:
CNN: 125,000
Fox News: 212,000
MSNBC: 124,000
