As legacy liberal news struggles with credibility, Fox News soars in ratings

Fox News continued to dominate cable news in 2024, buoyed not just by the historic comeback election victory of President Donald Trump, but by the sagging credibility of legacy liberal news networks.

The liberal cable networks were hurt by widely used talking points from the Biden White House that they tried to spin as news, while Fox News provided a large variety of credible coverage that appealed to all ranges of the political spectrum.

Marking its highest share since 2015, Fox News captured 56% of cable news’ prime-time viewers and 53% of total daytime audience in 2024, according to Nielsen Media Research shared by Fox News public relations.

By contrast, the Los Angeles Times reports MSNBC has dropped 46% of its viewers since Kamala Harris lost the presidential race to Trump. CNN’s ratings have also crashed 33% since the November election.   

In the key 25 to 54 demographic, the fourth quarter saw Fox News’ share skyrocket to 73% of prime-time cable news viewers, while MSNBC saw a 61% decrease for prime-time under the same demographic.  

In December, CNN’s decline was so steep The Lion reported the cable news network couldn’t beat a variety of niche and specialized networks, including TNT and the Food Network.  

The flood of viewers to Fox News comes during an especially busy news calendar, with presidential and general elections, wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East and the world facing alarming uncertainty.  

“Throughout coverage of a tumultuous political cycle, wars in the Middle East and major breaking news events, millions of viewers across the political spectrum continued to tune into FOX News Channel for our unrivaled reporting and analysis,” Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott said in a statement.  

Indeed, it’s not just conservatives energized by the election who are tuning in. The Los Angeles Times reports Fox News is gaining traction in big blue states such as New York and California and in big cities that are traditionally Democrat-controlled.  

“There is no doubt we are getting new viewers,” Fox Corp. Chief Financial Officer Steve Tomsic said at a recent UBS investors conference, according to the Los Angeles Times. “People think Fox News is just the conservatives of the United States. It’s not.” 

Insiders at Fox News said they think the pro-Israeli coverage at the news outlet drove viewers to tune in who normally wouldn’t have watched Fox.  

Additionally, more independent voters and Democrat voters started to choose Fox News over other networks, according to Nielsen MRI Fusion data shared by Fox News Media. The network was also No. 1 among Hispanic, Asian and upscale viewers, said Fox.  

Warning signs of viewership troubles at the liberal news networks started flashing after Biden was sworn in in January 2021, said one media scholar.  

“CNN and MSNBC were one-trick ponies, and that trick was bashing Trump,” said Cornell Law School professor and media critic William A. Jacobson, according to the New York Post. “The audience has disappeared because it never was loyal to CNN and MSNBC hosts; it was loyal to Trump hatred.”  

If the two liberal networks hoped the 2024 election would help them prop up ratings under the impetus of Trump hatred, the plan backfired. During the election, Trump was bolstered by key out-of-the-box endorsements and several big news events that tended to undermine his opponents’ credibility at the liberal news networks.  

One of the biggest news events was the apparent cover-up of President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, which was touted as false by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in a widely shared interview.  

In the interview, actor Michael Douglas, who is similar in age to Biden, repeated the White House talking point the president was “sharp as a tack,” a point widely disseminated by liberal media, including MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC and ABC, using Biden surrogates who clearly lied.   

Just two months later, Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump made obvious what was an open secret about Biden’s rapid mental decline, questions about which even former CNN staffers admitted they didn’t push.   

That may be one reason why a 2024 Pew Research Center study found more Americans named Fox News as their main source for political news than any other network, while a 2023 New York Times/Siena College poll found Fox News to be the leading single source of news for voters across the country.