Fox News Channel continues to lead ABC, CBS and NBC in weekday primetime viewers through October
Americans continued to rely on Fox News Channel for information and analysis through October, as FNC continues to lead all broadcast networks among weekday primetime viewers in 2025.
Since the start of the year, Fox News has averaged 3.3 million viewers in Monday-Friday during primetime, making it the highest-rated network in all of television, including ABC, CBS and NBC.
While Fox News has continued to beat broadcast networks during weekday primetime, it also had a larger audience than MSNBC and CNN combined across key metrics during the news-heavy month of October.
Fox News Channel averaged 1.5 million total day viewers to finish No.1 among all cable options, while MSNBC managed only 504,000 total day viewers and CNN settled for an average audience of 388,000.
During primetime, Fox News averaged 2.3 million viewers to crush cable news competitors as MSNBC averaged 815,000 primetime viewers and CNN delivered only 504,000.
Fox News commanded 63% of the cable news audience share among total day viewers and 64% during primetime.
It was much of the same when it comes to the advertiser-coveted demographic of adults age 25-54, as Fox News averaged 145,000 total day viewers from the critical group, compared to 58,000 for CNN and only 45,000 for MSNBC.
Despite beating MSNBC, the 58,000 demo viewers marked CNN’s worst October of all time in the key measurable. MSNBC posted its lowest-rated October in the category since 1997.
Fox News averaged 228,000 demo viewers during primetime, which is another category that saw MSNBC and CNN struggle.
CNN’s primetime lineup averaged only 77,000 demo viewers and MSNBC floundered with only 73,000 viewers from the group sought by advertisers.
“The Five” finished as the No. 1 show on cable news with 3.7 million total viewers, followed by “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Gutfeld!,” “Special Report with Bret Baier” and “Hannity.”
“Gutfeld!” continued to dominate all of late-night television, outdrawing CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” NBC’s “Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel live!” and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” In addition to topping other late-night programs, “Gutfeld!” finished as the most-watched cable news program among the key demo with an average audience of 325,000 adults age 25-54.
“Special Report” continued to close the gap with the broadcast competition, topping “CBS Evening News” in 19 top markets across the country, including New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Washington D.C, ABC’s “World News Tonight” in nine markets and “NBC Nightly News” in three markets.
“FOX & Friends” finished October with 1.3 million viewers and remained the No. 1 cable news program in the mornings among both total viewers and the demo for 56 consecutive months.
Fox News also continued to dominate throughout the weekend, winning every hour among both total viewers and the demo, defeating CNN and MSNBC by double to triple-digits among both categories on Saturdays and Sundays.
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“America’s Newsroom with Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino,” “The Faulkner Focus,” “Outnumbered,” “America Reports with John Roberts and Sandra Smith,” Martha MacCallum’s “The Story,” “The Will Cain Show,” “FOX News @ Night,” “FOX & Friends Weekend,” “Life, Liberty & Levin,” “Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy,” “The Sunday Briefing,’ anchored by Peter Doocy and Jacqui Heinrich, “The Big Weekend Show” and “One Nation with Brian Kilmeade” all had strong months, too, to help keep Fox News in the top spot.
“Saturday in America with Kayleigh McEnany” was the most-watched show on Saturdays with 1.4 million viewers, while “Sunday Morning Futures” averaged 1.6 million to take the Sunday crown.
