Fox News Down, MSNBC Up: Fall Cable News Viewership Trends
Despite all the significant events that have occurred in the U.S. and abroad over the last few months, cable news networks may be experiencing some news fatigue…or maybe this fall just wasn’t as exciting as 2022’s. According to a new analysis from Inscape, multiple cable news networks saw a year-over-year decrease in viewership share this fall. The report examined Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, CSPAN, Fox Business, Newsmax TV and NewsNation for September 1 through November 14.
In total, these networks comprised 9.81% of all linear TV network watch-time during the period measured, down from a 10.12% share during the same time period in 2022. It’s worth noting that last autumn saw a few high-profile events that may have boosted cable news tune-in: Queen Elizabeth II’s death, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and the red wave that never was during the midterm elections.
Of course, this fall hasn’t been super quiet either: Hunter Biden was indicted on gun charges and former President Trump was found guilty of fraud, the Republicans struggled to elect a new House Speaker after the ousting of Kevin McCarthy, Hamas attacked Israel (more on that below) — and there was another election cycle.
But anyways, here are a few specific insights from Inscape’s report.
Looking at the individual networks, Fox News dominated this fall: Out of all linear TV networks, it ranked fifth with a 4.54% viewership share, outpacing both CNN and MSNBC by over 2X. Notably, of those big three cable news networks, only MSNBC has seen year-over-year increases in viewership share.
Across all TV programs during the fall, CNN owns the top cable news program (CNN News Central, 0.59% viewership share of all TV programs, No. 10). That’s not exactly a shocker, given the sheer amount of time it’s on TV: Six hours each weekday, compared to the three-hour weekday runs of Fox & Friends, which ranked No. 19 across all TV programming with a 0.42% share.
Inscape also noted that for the month of October specifically, cable news saw a year-over-year increase in viewership share, from 9.48% to 10.68%. This is likely fueled by the Israel/Hamas conflict, the GOP’s House speaker crisis and the lead up to the November elections. In fact, CNN’s special program Israel at War ranked fourth on the network for the month (7.38% of all minutes watched on CNN).
Republican Debate Viewership
As of this week, there have been four Republican debates for the 2024 presidential hopefuls (sans Donald Trump, who continues to sit these affairs out), and tune-in has been a bit of a mixed bag. The first, which occurred on August 23 and was broadcast by Fox News, captured the most watch-time: 9.50% of all primetime minutes watched that day, making it the No. 1 program for the evening and even the day as a whole.
This week’s debate, aired by NewsNation and The CW, had the lowest viewership share of the four (2.21% of primetime minutes on December 6). It could be argued that many people aren’t even aware that NewsNation exists, and may not think to tune into The CW for a political program — factors that could result in lower viewership.
With three additional debates in the works for January (two hosted by CNN, one by ABC — all unsanctioned by the GOP this far) it remains to be seen if people will tune-in more as the calendar officially flips to a presidential election year…or if viewers will tune out the political posturing sure to come.
For more TV viewership insights like these, check out our weekly TV By the Numbers column, published on Tuesdays with Inscape data on the top programs and networks by watch-time.
