Fox News’s Top Show Is Scoring Ten Times The Viewers of CNN Prime Time Since The Election

Cable news’s long-reigning top-rated show, The Five, has surged in the ratings since Donald Trump’s victory in early November. Fox News’s political panel show, which averaged 3.6 million total viewers in October, has been on an incredible 23-day run of 4 million plus viewers since November 4th, which is over 10 times CNN’s prime time average viewership. On election day itself, The Five raked in a whopping 7.15 million total viewers and 1.16 million viewers in the key 25-54 age demographic.

Co-hosted by some of Fox News’s most-watched on-air talent like Jesse Watters, Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, and Jeanine Pirro, The Five has been a staple at Fox News since it first debuted in 2011. It’s also one of the last shows in the industry to pit its liberal co-hosts, Jessica Tarlov and Harold Ford, Jr, against conservatives in heated debates on the issues of the day.

While The Five has been soaring in the ratings, Fox

’s competition has continued to see its viewership decline – with CNN averaging only 405,000 total viewers in prime time since the election. While CNN’s total viewership is down 45% in prime time since the election, it has also lost over half of its demo viewers, averaging 77,000 viewers in the prime time demo.

MSNBC, meanwhile, fell some 61% in the demo since the election to a prime time average of 57,000 viewers. In total viewers, MSNBC has averaged 620,000 prime time viewers – a 54% drop. For comparison, in October, CNN averaged 830,000 total viewers and 175,000 demo viewers, while MSNBC raked in 1.39 million total viewers and 160,000 demo viewers in prime time.

CNN and MSNBC’s plummeting ratings have also meant that Fox News has expanded its share of total cable news viewers. The leading network now accounts for 72% of all prime time cable news viewers and 71% of viewers in the demo, according to Nielsen Media Research. Post-election, Fox has averaged 2.7 million prime time viewers and 331,000 in the demo.

Additionally, Fox News has scored the top 284 cable news telecasts since the election, while both CNN and MSNBC have yet to have one hour top two million viewers. MSNBC has still managed to post the best non-Fox News numbers. On Monday, MSNBC scored three shows with over 1 million viewers: Deadline: White House with Nicole Wallace, The Rachel Maddow Show, and The

Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell. The network also averaged 1.09 million prime time viewers, a boost from its October average.

While MSNBC may have reason for optimism that the incoming Trump administration may yield a ratings boost, CNN’s audience shows little sign of returning at the moment. Kaitlin Collins, who will be the face of the network’s Trump White House coverage, registered her lowest rated week since her show The Source launched in July of 2023, averaging 402,000 total viewers and 77,000 in the demo.