Here is TVNewser’s recap of the cable news ratings for the first quarter of 2025.
It has been an start to the new year on multiple fronts. Former President Joe Biden handed the Oval Office back to President Donald Trump in January. Since then, the new administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE group have been regularly making headlines as they’ve sought to reshape the scope of the federal government.
Also in January, massive wildfires swept through the Los Angeles area, wrecking communities and claiming lives. Two airplane tragedies in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia put the aviation industry in the spotlight. And then in March, the Trump administration experienced its first major political scandal when defense secretary Pete Hegseth was involved in leaking war plans to the editor in chief of The Atlantic.
Fox News remained the top cable news network, and enjoyed its highest-rated quarter in cable news history. In addition to topping its cable rivals, FNC also surpassed ABC and NBC during weekday primetime.
Fox News also secured its highest quarter cable news share ever with 65% of the audience in total day and 66% in primetime. It was the only one of the three cable outlets to see its performance improve versus the same quarter in 2024 across the board.
There were also programming changes made during this quarter amongst all the outlets. Fox News introduced The Will Cain Show at 4 p.m. ET and rejigged its weekend primetime lineup. MSNBC revamped most of its its weekday and weekend lineup, which led to the depature of Joy Reid at 7 p.m. ET. Finally CNN reworked its weekday lineup resulting in a new 4 p.m. show from Kasie Hunt, as well as Jake Tapper bordering primetime and Wolf Blitzer moving to the midmorning timeslot of 10 a.m. ET.
Fox News Channel
Fox News averaged 3.012 million total primetime viewers and 380,000 Adults 25-54 viewers in Q1 2025. During total day, Fox News had 1.919 million total viewers, and 247,000 demo viewers.
Looking at its performance compared to the same quarter in 2024, FNC was up +46% in total viewers and +63% in the demo during primetime. In total day, the network was up a respective +48% and +58% in those measured categories.
According to Nielsen Media Research, Fox News’ rule at the top of cable news has now stretched to 93 consecutive quarters.
Fox News was the most-watched cable network during primetime in total viewers and the second most-watched network in the demo and repeated those positions during total day.
MSNBC