The Fox News Channel celebrated double-digit audience gains last year as the network continued to dominate the competition, powering through despite the continued slippage of younger viewers bedeviling the TV industry.
The 2025 Nielsen ratings showed that Fox News averaged 3,118,000 viewers in weekday prime time (8 to 11 p.m. Eastern time), running well ahead of cable channels CNN and MS NOW and even beating broadcast network NBC, which notched 3,099,000 viewers.
The results represented the second-highest ratings, and the highest ratings in a non-election year, in the 29-year history of Fox News, as well as its 10th straight year as the top-rated cable network.
Even so, there was a downside. Fox News and the other networks continued to witness a slide in the coveted 25-54 age demographic as the 20-year cord-cutting trend among younger audiences showed no sign of abating.
In weekly prime time, Fox News registered 2,652,000 viewers on average, up 11% from 2024, including 278,000 in the 25-54 demographic, or down 5% from the previous year, according to Nielsen figures released by the cable network.
The right-tilting Fox News still outperformed its competition on the left, which had less success in attracting younger viewers despite their more progressive political stances.
CNN saw 573,000 viewers in weekly prime time, down 16% from the previous year, and 102,000 in the 25-54 demographic, down 31% from 2024.
Similarly, MS NOW brought in 915,000 viewers, down 25% from 2024, and just 80,000 in the 25-54 demographic, a sobering 40% drop from the previous year.
The loss of viewers in “the demo,” as it’s known, comes as networks continue to lose younger audiences to alternative news and entertainment sources, including social media, influencers and streaming services.
A Pew Research Center survey released in August found that 12% of adults — including 19% of those under 30 — don’t get their news from any major TV news source, including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, MSNBC (now MS NOW) and Univision, or from leading newspapers.
“This pattern reflects the growing proportion of young Americans who are turning to newer information sources, including social media and news influencers,” the Pew analysis states. “Adults under 30 are more likely than any other age group to turn to social media for news and less likely than older adults to get news from print publications, radio or television.”
By contrast, just 7% of adults ages 50-64, and 4% of those over 65, said they never tune in to network TV and newspapers.
“Younger Americans are also most likely to turn to news influencers, listen to podcasts and generally follow the news less closely,” said the center. “In 2022, only 19% of 18- to 29-year-olds said they followed the news all or most of the time, compared with 64% of adults 65 and older.”
The Deloitte Center for Technology, Media & Telecommunications said in its 2025 Digital Media Trends report that U.S. consumers engage with media and entertainment content for about six hours each day and that their preferred sources differ markedly by age.
Americans in Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, said they spent 0.8 hours each day watching TV shows or movies on cable, or live-streaming shows on TV, versus 0.9 hours for millennials and 1.3 hours for Gen X.
All three demographic groups were likelier to watch shows and movies on streaming video on demand, or SVOD.
The biggest live TV watchers were baby boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, who logged 2.1 hours, and the older generation known as matures, who viewed 2.3 hours.
“Looking across generations, preferences among respondents appear to be shifting away from pay TV and toward streaming video services, social video platforms, and gaming,” the March 2025 report said. “Although TV once dominated video entertainment time, we now see US audiences — and especially younger generations — engaging more evenly with SVOD companies, social platforms, gaming, and even audio entertainment like music and podcasts.”
An analysis released this month by Cord Cutters News found that the big four broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox Broadcasting Co. — lost more than 3 million viewers from 2020-25 as the industry undergoes a “pivotal transition in media consumption.”
“This trend underscores the challenges traditional broadcasters face in retaining audiences amid the rise of on-demand platforms, fragmented viewing habits, and competition from tech giants,” said the Cord Cutters report.
Networks have responded in part by launching streaming services and moving onto social-media platforms such as YouTube.
Fox News also dominated on YouTube last year, drawing 4.5 billion video views versus 3.7 billion for second-place MS NOW and 2.3 billion for CNN, followed by the broadcast networks, according to Emplifi data released by Fox.
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