The cable news ratings gap has widened into a chasm, as fresh Nielsen data for the second quarter of 2025 shows Fox News posting massive year-over-year growth while rivals MSNBC and CNN suffered dramatic double-digit declines, according to figures first reported by Adweek.
A league of its own: The Q2 numbers cemented Fox News’s dominance, marking the 94th straight quarter it has held the top spot in cable news. The network’s primetime viewership spiked 25% from last year, and its performance was the second-strongest Q2 in its history for weekday viewership, trailing only its 2020 pandemic coverage.
Bleeding eyeballs: Meanwhile, the left-leaning networks are struggling to hold their audience. MSNBC’s primetime numbers fell 15% to just over 1 million viewers, with an even steeper 26% plunge in daytime viewership. CNN fared no better, with its primetime audience dropping 13% to just around 540,000—less than the viewership of Fox News’s top 14 shows.
Changing the channel: But CNN told the NY Post that the ratings-focused narrative is flawed. A spokesperson called it “an outdated view of the media landscape,” arguing that its global digital audience and strong performance in June paint a more complete picture of its reach.
The final score: The data highlights two diverging realities in cable news: one of accelerating growth and another of managed decline, where legacy media brands are forced to argue that traditional metrics no longer tell the whole story.
The wider view: While Fox News dominates cable, the broadcast news race has its own clear winner, with ABC’s World News Tonight notching its largest lead over NBC in 30 years. And as the big players battle, smaller outlets like NewsNation are finding room to grow, recording a 24% primetime viewership gain. The viewership struggles at CNN and MSNBC are also fueling rumors that their parent companies may be looking to spin them off.
