TV Ratings: CNN Has Lost Viewers and Credibility

CNN's ongoing decline in viewership signals a significant loss of credibility among American audiences, according to Fox News contributor Joe Concha.

Recent data highlights the extent of the drop: In 2025, CNN averaged just 573,000 primetime viewers and 432,000 total day viewers — representing a loss of more than 40% in both categories compared to 2017, the first year of Donald Trump's initial presidency when the network enjoyed a "Trump bump" in ratings.

Joe Concha

Concha attributed this "hemorrhaging" of viewers directly to perceived erosion of trust, telling Fox News Digital: “This shows that the networks that have cried wolf, or in this case, cried Trump, have gone to that well about one thousand times more than even many of their viewers can stand.”

He pointed to what he described as slanted coverage on major stories since 2017. Concha specifically criticized CNN for aggressively promoting the Russian collusion narrative regarding Trump while downplaying or dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop story as unreliable or disinformation in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

Concha's comments align with broader analyses of cable news trends, where networks perceived as overly focused on anti-Trump messaging have seen audiences shift away, especially in a changing media landscape with more fragmented viewing options and post-election audience fatigue.

While CNN has reported some month-to-month gains in early 2026 tied to breaking news events, the long-term trajectory from 2017 through 2025 shows substantial erosion in its core audience.