Fox News Scores Highest-Rated January in History of Cable News, Notches First Time Win Over The View

Fox News ended the month of January with its highest-rated January in the network’s history and extended a stunning run of scoring the top 603 cable news broadcasts since the presidential election in early November.

Fox, which enters its 23rd year as the most-watched cable news network in the country, also saw eye-popping numbers for its top programs. The Five continued its long reign at number one in the industry with an average of 4.8 million total viewers for the month, which far surpasses the numbers Tucker Carlson hauled in during his heyday at the network, when he averaged above 3 million viewers nightly.

Fox’s daytime programming also notched some new records, as America’s Newsroom, The Faulkner Focus, Outnumbered, and America Reports all brought in their highest-rated months ever in total viewers. Harris Faulkner, who helms both The Faulkner Focus and Outnumbered, scored her first-ever win for the month over ABC’s The View. The Faulkner Focus beat The View with 2.55 million viewers to 2.51 million viewers, respectively. Notably, The View aired reruns for the first week of the month due to the holidays.

In prime time, Jesse Watters, who also co-hosts The Five, raked in 4.12 million average viewers while Sean Hannity scored 3.8 million. Bret Baier’s Special Report, the network’s top news program, brought in 3.5 million viewers, while Laura Ingraham’s show rounded out the top five with 3.46 million average viewers.

Fox’s surging prime time ratings resulted in a 40 percent year-over-year gain for the network in total viewers and a whopping 61 percent gain in the key 25 to 54 age demographic favored by advertisers. In total day, Fox was up 53 percent in total viewers and a massive 70 percent in the demo.

MSNBC and CNN, which both struggled to attract viewers after Donald Trump’s November win, notched all-time January lows in the demo. CNN averaged 80,000 in the total day demo and 118,000 in the prime time demo. MSNBC landed in third place with only 45,000 total day demo viewers and 63,000 in prime time. For comparison, Fox brought in 253,000 total day and 353,000 prime time average demo viewers for the month.

On average, Fox accounted for 67 percent of total daytime cable news viewers and 69 percent of prime time viewers for the month.

MSNBC did show signs its audience was back with a 61 percent prime time viewership increase following Trump’s January 20th inauguration when compared to the previous three weeks – up to 1.3 million average viewers from 799,000. MSNBC also notched a 39 precent increase in prime time viewers and a 26 percent total day increase when compared to December. Rachel Maddow’s full-time return to cover the first 100 days of Trump’s second term certainly helped to boost those numbers.

While CNN beat MSNBC in the demo, it landed in third place in total viewers – averaging 522,000 total prime time viewers and 421,000 total day viewers for the month. However, the network did see strong increases from December. CNN was up a solid 103 percent in the prime time demo from December’s average of 60,000 viewers and it was up some 56 percent in total prime time viewers – the second-highest growth of any cable news network for the month after ESPN.

In total viewers, Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, Nicolle Wallace, and Ari Melber led MSNBC in the ratings with Maddow averaging 1.7 million viewers and O’Donnell bringing in 1.02 million. CNN’s Jake Tapper led his network with an average of 638,000 viewers while Anderson Cooper came in second place with 596,000 average total viewers.

NewsNation saw its highest-rated month since beginning its 24/7 live news coverage in June of 2024, bringing in 66,000 total day average viewers. In prime time the upstart network averaged 121,000 total viewers, its second-biggest monthly haul to date. The network also notched some rare wins in the demo over MSNBC with its weekend content.

On the right side of things, Newsmax also saw its numbers increase with the network scoring wins over CNN prime time programming. Last week, both Carl Higbie and Rob Schmitt beat their CNN competition on Tuesday with Higbie bringing in an impressive  810,000 total viewers. Rob Schmitt Tonight led the network for the month with 529,000 total average viewers for the month.