100 Days of Trump: MSNBC and CNN Trudge to Pre-Election Numbers as Fox News Grows

While the aftermath of Donald Trump’s win in the 2024 election saw some grim ratings for MSNBC and CNN, viewership for the cable news networks is slowly trudging back to pre-election numbers, while Fox News’ audience continues to grow 100 days into his second term.

MSNBC averaged 1.16 million viewers in primetime since Trump’s inauguration, down 13% from the average 1.34 million viewers in 2024 leading up to the election, while CNN averaged 562,000 primetime viewers, down 24% from the network’s average 2024 viewership of 739,000. The same can be said for total-day viewing, with MSNBC averaging 635,000 viewers and CNN at 427,000, down 26% and 16%, respectively, from their pre-election averages. 

Despite the double-digit percentage decreases in both primetime and total day, both networks have seen an uptick when compared to the initial drops they experienced after the election. MSNBC and CNN brought in 594,000 and 409,000 average primetime viewers from the day after the election through the day before Trump’s inauguration, a time when disappointed Kamala Harris voters may have tuned out. Given the election’s results and historical patterns, numbers were expected to be down — particularly for left-leaning MSNBC — during this interval, especially when accounting for lower news viewership during the holiday season.

Fox News, however, has enjoyed consistent growth since the election, with the right-leaning network averaging 3.02 million primetime viewers and 1.88 million total-day viewers in Trump’s first 100 days — up 27% and 31.5%, respectively, from the network’s pre-election 2024 average. The network seemed to be immune from a downtick during the holiday season too, seeing primetime viewership grow slightly from its pre-election 2024 average after the election ahead of Trump 2.0. 

While cord-cutting and an overall decrease in linear viewing accounts for smaller audiences on MSNBC and CNN during the first 100 days of Trump’s second term when compared to the same time period in 2017 — with MSNBC primetime viewership down 26% and CNN down 52% — Fox News similarly escaped that trend, growing its primetime audience by 8% for Trump’s first 100 days. In fact, Trump 2.0 has boosted Fox News to reach its biggest audience for the first 100 days of any presidency, beating the record it set during his first term.

NBA playoffs shatter records for ESPN

Continuing their strong second half of the season, this year’s NBA playoffs are off to a stellar start, bringing in the largest audience ever for the event on ESPN, with the 11 games averaging 4.45 million viewers across platforms, up 13% from last year. Weekend 2 of the playoffs scored 5.46 million viewers on ESPN platforms, up 4% from 2024.

“You” makes a killer last season debut

The fifth and final season of “You” debuted to 10.1 million views on Netflix in its first four days on the streamer, ranking as the week’s most-watched English-language TV show and topping returning drama series “Black Mirror” Season 7, which scored 7.1 million views in its first four days earlier in April.

The release of “You” also boosted the Warner Bros. TV-produced show’s first season back into Netflix’s weekly top 10 list, tallying up 1.8 million views last week.

CBS maintains its broadcast dominance

As the 2025–26 broadcast season comes to a close, CBS touted that the network is on track to rank as the most-watched broadcaster for the 17th consecutive season, a run that would surpass broadcast television’s longest winning streak on record, which was previously held by CBS from 1955 to 1970.

The Paramount Global-owned network is averaging 4.99 million viewers in primetime, boosted by airing the top seven most-watched shows across broadcast TV, including “Tracker,” “Matlock,” “60 Minutes,” “FBI,” “Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage,” “Blue Bloods” and “NCIS.”

The post 100 Days of Trump: MSNBC and CNN Trudge to Pre-Election Numbers as Fox News Grows appeared first on TheWrap.