Fox News Channel was already leading its cable news competitors before gaining a boost from Trump’s influence. The right-leaning network has been thriving since the November elections, surpassing its left-leaning rivals and reaching new ratings milestones as its audience keeps up with President Trump’s relentless pace. “It is probably beyond the wildest dreams of anyone inside Fox News just how much they have surged in terms of both raw ratings and market share,” Curtis Houck, managing editor of the conservative Media Research Center’s Newsbusters, told the Washington Times.
After securing 23 consecutive years as the top-rated cable news network, Fox celebrated its highest-rated January ever, averaging nearly 2.8 million prime-time viewers, compared to 522,000 for CNN and 734,000 for MSNBC, according to Nielsen Media Research data.
Typically, television ratings drop after an election, but Fox’s prime-time audience remained strong, averaging 2.6 million viewers from Nov. 6 through Feb. 10. This marks an 11% increase over the same period in 2024 for both overall prime-time viewership and the key 25- to 54-year-old demographic. Fox’s total-day audience surged by 24%, with its total-day 25-54 demographic rising by 23% year over year during the three months following the election.
How dominant is Fox? According to January data shared by Nielsen/MRI-Simmons Fusion with The Washington Times, more Democrats and independents are watching Fox than its liberal competitors. Total day figures for viewers 18 and older show that 335,000 Democrats watched Fox, compared with 137,000 for CNN and 189,000 for MSNBC.
The gap among independent, third-party, and unaffiliated voters was even more pronounced. Fox attracted 516,000 of these viewers, compared to 96,000 for CNN and 109,000 for MSNBC. Why would Democrats tune into Fox News? Houck suggested that some of it could be attributed to “hate-watching” by political activists and disillusioned supporters of former Vice President Kamala Harris. “So you have that,” he said. “But you also have a lot of Democrats who were surprised by the election results, and yes, they may be upset and demoralized, but they want to genuinely understand why they lost.”
Fox is also seen as having an edge, with its on-air personalities taking key roles in the Trump administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Former CNN White House correspondent Frank Sesno commented, “Fox enjoys double billing because it’s now a network and it’s half of the administration.”
“If the Democrats are going [to Fox], my explanation for that is, this is where people are getting what the actual thinking is inside the administration,” Sesno, a professor and director of strategic initiatives at the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, told the Times. “The administration used to be on the air there.”
Fox isn’t just dominating cable news; it’s also taking on the broadcast networks. Last month, Fox’s The Faulkner Focus, hosted by Harris Faulkner, surpassed ABC’s The View for the first time, attracting 2.55 million viewers compared to 2.50 million for the talk show led by Whoopi Goldberg. “Each year, we surpass new milestones, continue to innovate, and outperform the competition due to their tireless efforts, and I could not be prouder,” Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott said in a Jan. 28 statement.
