Fox News Has Stunning Primetime Ratings Win Over NBC, ABC & CBS

Fox News is having its best year ever as the cable network is not only ahead of its rival news networks but is also outperforming the major broadcast channels.

According to Nielsen ratings, Fox News has topped all cable and broadcast networks in weekday primetime for the start of 2025, averaging 3.63 million total viewers between December 30 and March 11. In comparison, MSNBC averaged 1.26 million total viewers, and CNN averaged 635,000 total viewers across primetime.

Fox News topping its competing cable news networks isn’t a shock, but what is surprising is how it landed ahead of broadcast, which is more widely available across the United States. According to Mediaite, Fox News is available in 63 million homes, while the broadcast networks reach 120 million homes.

With its 3.63 million average, Fox News beat out CBS at 3.57 million and NBC at 3.13 million. Meanwhile, ABC averaged 3.12 million, and ESPN scored 3.03 million.

Here is how the networks stack up in average viewership so far this year.

• Fox News: 3.63 million
• CBS: 3.57 million
• NBC: 3.13 million
• ABC: 3.12 million
• ESPN: 3.03 million
• Fox: 1.63 million
• MSNBC: 1.26 million
• CNN: 635,000

The ratings success for Fox News doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon. For the week ending March 9, the network averaged 3.9 million viewers in primetime, with 550,000 in the age 25-54 demographic sought after by advertisers. This made it the network’s most-watched primetime week since the November election.

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A big ratings winner for the network was President Donald Trump‘s address to Congress on March 4, which drew 10. 7 million viewers. The Democratic response from Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) also attracted a large audience for Fox News, with 5.9 million viewers.

Several Fox News programs have outperformed the competition so far in 2025, including The Five, which has averaged 4.7 million viewers. This is higher than the average for NBC’s Saturday Night Live and ABC’s NBA Saturday Primetime.

Jesse Watters Primetime at 8 pm ET pulled in 4.4 million viewers and 554,000 in the 25-54 demo, while Hannity at 9 pm ET saw an average of 3.7 million viewers and 503,000 in the key demo. Meanwhile, Gutfeld! at 10 pm has recently posted higher ratings than The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel Live!

The network is also dominating in daytime, with programs such as Outnumbered, The Faulkner Focus, and The Story with Martha MacCallum consistently drawing over 2.4 million viewers, higher than NBC’s Today‘s third hour and CBS Mornings.

From TV Guide Magazine

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