Fox News Tops July Ratings With Retooled Primetime Lineup, But All Cable News Networks See Declines Versus 2022

Ted Johnson
·3 min read
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Fox News’ retooled primetime lineup topped rivals in July, but all cable news networks saw audience erosion versus the same month a year ago.

Jesse Watters Primetime, which debuted in the 8 p.m. ET time slot on July 17, averaged 2.4 million viewers, an improvement over the temporary occupant of the period, Fox News Tonight, with its series of rotating hosts, after Tucker Carlson’s show was pulled in April. Tucker Carlson Tonight averaged 3.1 million viewers in July, 2022.

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Another schedule change was the move of Greg Gutfeld up an hour to 10 p.m. ET. Gutfeld! averaged 1.98 million viewers and 252,000 in the 25-54 demo. The latter was enough to place it second in that category, to Fox News’s The Five, which averaged 254,000. The Five also was the most watched cable news show, averaging 2.59 million viewers.

Overall, though, audiences were off versus July 2022, with Fox News and CNN seeing the most significant drops.

In primetime, Fox News averaged 1.57 million viewers, down 26% from a year earlier. MSNBC averaged 1.12 million, down 13%, and CNN posted 534,000, down 27%. In the 25-54 demo, Fox News averaged 148,000, down 49%, compared to MSNBC with 108,000, down 19% and CNN with 104,000, down 35%.

In total day (6 AM-6AM), Fox News averaged 1.07 million, down 21%, compared to MSNBC with 723,000, off by 5%, and CNN with 426,000, down 21%. In the 25-54 demo, Fox News averaged 122,000, down 37%, compared to CNN with 79,000, down 28%, and MSNBC with 75,000, down 11%.

Among total viewers, The Five, with 2.59 million, topped all shows, followed by Jesse Watters Primetime with 2.4 million, Hannity with 2.16 million, Gutfeld! with 1.98 million and The Ingraham Angle with 1.93 million. In the 25-54 demo, The Five averaged 254,000, followed by Gutfeld! with 252,000, Jesse Watters Primetime with 207,000, Hannity with 201,000 and The Ingraham Angle with 174,000.

The show figures do not include broken out airings of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show on Monday nights. The show averaged 2.45 million viewers, while it posted 220,000 among adults 25-54. The figures are enough to put the show in the top five among all cable news viewers, as it beat rivals in total viewers and the demo in its one-night-a-week airing.

NewsNation remains far behind major cable news networks, but it did see an uptick in its coverage of the congressional hearing on UFOs last week as well as a primetime special on Sunday. We Are Not Alone: The Historic Hearing averaged more than 100,000 viewers in the Sunday 9 PM ET timeslot. In the 25-54 demo, it outpaced CNN’s See It Loud documentary. We Are Not Alone averaged 39,000 and See It Loud posted 32,000 in the demo, per NewsNation.

The figures are from Nielsen via Fox News and MSNBC.

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