April Ratings: Fox News Lands Top 12 Shows, CNN Ratings Drop As Ukraine Interest Wanes

April was a month of major ups and downs in the cable news business. March saw a ratings explosion across the board as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine kept viewers glued to their TVs and the State of the Union brought in big numbers. However, in April, interest in Ukraine waned and networks saw viewers return to old habits, especially on CNN, which saw its numbers sink dramatically compared to March.

The implosion of CNN+ dominated headlines in late April and while the network is unlikely to recoup any of the reported $300 million spent on the weeks-long streaming service, many in the industry are optimistic incoming president Chris Licht will be able to right the ship. While CNN continues to land in third place in terms of total viewers, the network is regularly a strong second in the key 25-54 age demographic, which offers Licht a starting point to build off of.

April also saw the full-time return of Rachel Maddow to MSNBC prime time, which helped to boost the network’s average prime time viewership. Maddow returned after a weeks-long hiatus and announced that beginning in May she will scale down to hosting her show only once a week, on Mondays.

While Maddow was able to bring back her audience and lift her show to over 2 million nightly viewers, her colleague Joy Reid struggled in April to retain her audience.

April came in as Reid’s lowest-rated month in the show’s history. The ReidOut brought in an average of 1.1 million total viewers, which marked a 31% decline from last April. Reid is down a total 51% compared to her show’s debut in July of 2020.

Across prime time, MSNBC averaged 1.12 million total viewers in April, behind Fox News’ 2.36 million average viewers. Both networks saw a slight dip from the previous month, which saw MSNBC average 1.28 million viewers and Fox News average 2.86 million total viewers.

CNN saw the most dramatic decline from last month, driven largely by the boost the network received from breaking news coverage out of Ukraine. In March, CNN averaged 1.22 million total viewers across prime time, which was down to 694,000 total average viewers in April. In the demo, CNN also saw a significant drop from 366,000 to 168,000 between March and April.

Fox News dropped from 529,000 demo viewers in March to 364,000 in April, while MSNBC dropped from 183,000 to 124,000 – respectively.

Fox News’ line-up continued to dominate the ratings with The Five landing, yet again, as the most-watched show on cable news in total viewers and Tucker Carlson tonight winning in the demo.
Fox scored the top 12 shows on cable news in April with Maddow landing at 13th. Anderson Cooper, at 23rd overall, ended the month as the highest-rated show on CNN with an average of 846,000 total viewers.

Fox Business Network notched a rare win over CNBC in April as well, ending the month with the most day time viewers for the first time since January 2020. FBN brought in an average of 203,000 total viewers compared to 201,000 for CNBC during the business day hours, which are the crucial hours for business networks.

Here are the total day averages in total viewers and the 25-54 category for a seven-day week during the month of April.

Total viewers:

CNN: 582,000

Fox 1.52 million

MSNBC: 668,000

25-54 Demo:

CNN: 132,000

Fox News: 248,000

MSNBC: 75,000

Here are the prime time averages — encompassing shows which air from 8-11 p.m. — in total viewers and the 25-54 demo for a seven-day week during the month of March.

Total viewers:

CNN: 694,000

Fox News: 2.36 million

MSNBC: 1.12 million

25-54 Demo:

CNN: 168,000

Fox News: 364,000

MSNBC: 124,000

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number of total viewers CNN saw in March.