January 2023 Ratings: Fox News Nears 2 Years of Dominance as CNN’s Ratings Woes Continue
Fox News continued its dominance over the cable news industry during January, which was the network’s twenty-third consecutive month beating both MSNBC and CNN in total viewers and in the key 25 to 54 age demographic.
While CNN did show year-over-year growth, up 7 percent in both total viewers and in the demo from January 2022, the network still landed in a solid third place in total viewers, failing to achieve notable growth from the ratings lows it saw towards the end of Jeff Zucker’s controversy-plagued tenure.
Fox came in first with 1.35 million average total viewers, while MSNBC brought in 703,000 average total viewers. CNN averaged 524,000 total average viewers. Fox was down 4 percent year over year, while MSNBC was up 7 percent year over year.
In the demo, MSNBC landed in third place for the month with 78,000 average viewers. CNN came in second place with 107,000 average demo viewers, while Fox was in first place with 178,000 average total day demo viewers.
In terms of programming, Fox destroyed the competition, airing 99 of the top 100 telecasts for the month. Fox also had the top 13 rated shows for the month and while six MSNBC shows beat Fox & Friends and Fox News at Night, both programs beat the entire CNN line-up.
Fox’s The Five, Tucker Carlson Tonight, Jesse Watters Primetime, Hannity, and Special Report with Bret Baier were the top-rated shows in January – respectively. January marked The Five’s 10th month as the highest-rated show in cable news. Tucker Carlson, again, led the industry in the demo.
Things are starting to change at MSNBC in the post-Maddow era. Ari Melber led MSNBC with the 14th highest-rated show overall. Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Hayes, Nicolle Wallace, and Alex Wagner rounded out MSNBC’s top-five rated shows – in that order.
On CNN, Erin Burnett scored the highest-rated show in total viewers. Burnett was followed by Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper, and Wolf Blitzer as the highest-rated hosts.
CNN suffered its lowest-rated week in 9 years between January 16th and the 22nd averaging only 444,000 total viewers. May 2014 marked the last time CNN did not average at least 450,000 viewers for a week. CNN’s newly revamped morning show, CNN This Morning, also saw its lowest-rated week since its launch in November. The show averaged 331,000 between Jan. 16th and the 22nd, while Fox & Friends averaged just below 1 million total viewers and MSNBC’s Morning Joe averaged 760,000 total viewers.
All three networks saw a drop across prime time in January, with Fox dipping 13 percent year over year.
CNN dropped only 1 percent, while MSNBC was down 9 percent from January of 2022. Notably, Fox saw a drop in the prime time demo of 29 percent year over year. MSNBC was down 16 percent in the prime time demo, while CNN was up 3 percent year over year.
Here are the total day averages in total viewers and the 25-54 category during the month of January.
Total viewers:
CNN: 524,000
Fox 1.35 million
MSNBC: 703,000
25-54 Demo:
CNN: 107,000
Fox News: 173,000
MSNBC: 78,000
Here are the prime time averages — encompassing shows which air from 8-11 p.m. —during the month of January.
Total viewers:
CNN: 629,000
Fox News: 1.94 million
MSNBC: 1.05 million
25-54 Demo:
CNN: 144,000
Fox News: 239,000
MSNBC: 109,000
