Report: Fox News Crushes CNN, MSNBC

Fox News pulled off a remarkable turnaround in 2021. The long-dominant network began the year with a historic run at third place in the January ratings but has since rebounded in a dramatic fashion, reports Mediaite.

Despite its slow start, Fox is set to finish 2021 – for the sixth year in a row – as the number one channel on basic cable, which will also mark its 20th straight year as the number one network in cable news. Fox News Media’s CEO Suzanne Scott boasted in a statement that it is the only cable news network to show growth in a year in which everyone lost viewers en mass. New programming, a host of new issues to cover, a president to oppose, and the strength of prime time opinion shows appear to have made the difference for Fox in 2021.

While the network has stirred its fair share of controversy this year and said goodbye to one of its most well-respected veteran journalists, Chris Wallace, Fox also managed to pull in a surprising, ideologically diverse audience.

According to data from Nielsen/MRI Fusion, Fox News is watched by more Democrats than CNN and by more Independents than both MSNBC and CNN. Data averages from April to August show that while Fox pulled in 62 percent of all conservatives watching cable, 29 percent of all liberals watched Fox – while 46 percent watched MSNBC and 25 percent watched CNN. MSNBC attracted 24 percent of the conservative audience, while CNN only pulled in 14 percent.

Among Independents, Fox attracted 45 percent of the total audience, while MSNBC received 31 percent and CNN raked in 24 percent. While the exact meaning of these numbers is difficult to parse out, they track with a larger trend in media for 2021 – a diminishing interest in political news. Even the Washington Post, which saw interest in its core political stories diminish this year, is looking beyond politics to attract readers and new subscribers.

And while its competitors CNN and MSNBC continued to laser focus on Donald Trump, January 6th, and discord within the Republican Party, Fox News found more fertile subjects for its audience.

Fox noticeably moved away from mentions of Trump. Mediaite’s Colby Hall documented in October that Fox mentioned Trump far fewer times than CNN or MSNBC. The shift was counter-intuitive, as the 45th president had been credited with the so-called Trump bump that drove record viewers and clicks across cable news and digital media during his presidency.

Graphic Courtesy of RoadMN

But it worked for Fox’s audience, which was treated to coverage on a range of other issues from the Covid-19 pandemic, critical race theory, crime, the southern border, inflation, and oppositional coverage of President Joe Biden.

In terms of raw numbers for 2021, Fox averaged 1.3 million in total day viewers, while MSNBC and CNN lagged behind with 919,000 and 787,000 – respectively.

In prime time, Fox averaged 2.3 million viewers, with 374,000 in the key 25-54 age demographic. CNN brought in 1.1 million average total viewers and 276,000 in the demo, while MSNBC pulled in 1.55 million total average viewers and only 220,000 in the demo.