Fox News Scores Massive Ratings Win After Going ALL IN With RNC Coverage As Competition Bleeds Viewers

Fox News crushed its competition with its Republican National Convention coverage this week, drawing a whopping 10 million viewers at 10 p.m. on the last night of the Milwaukee-hosted event.

Fox News was the most-watched television network for RNC coverage, according to Nielsen Media Research data. The first night, co-moderated by Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier , at 10 p.m. averaged 6.9 million viewers and more than 1.2 million viewers in the key 25-54 age demographic. Sean Hannity’s interview with Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), now the GOP’s vice presidential candidate, nearly matched those ratings, drawing more than six million viewers the same night.

For comparison’s sake, CNN and MSNBC notched one million and 1.8 million viewers in the 9 p.m. hour and 1.1. million and 1.3 million in the next hour — respectively.

The second night of RNC coverage for Fox News averaged more than five million viewers and over 900,000 in the 25-54 demo during their 10 p.m. round of coverage. The same block of coverage on Wednesday night brought in seven million viewers and about 1.3 million in the 25-54 demo. This was the night Vance addressed the crowd as Trump’s running mate.

Fox News typically pulls ahead of other networks, but their viewership over competition for the RNC marked an unusually high margin. The network went all-in with its RNC coverage, pulling in familiar faces and setting up multiple studios around the venue.

On night three of the convention, the network occupied a whopping 76% of the overall cable news viewing audience. While a notable statistic on its own, the number stands out more when you consider the fact that Fox News has increased its viewership over 2016, while CNN and MSNBC have shed double-digit percentage points since that time (2020 presented its own unique challenges across the board with Covid lockdowns).

Compared to 2016, Fox has seen double digit gains while CNN has shed more than 60% overall in daytime and primetime viewers. MSNBC has also lost around 30% in daytime viewers and more than 40% in primetime.

Fox’s gain in viewership has also come at a time when cord-cutting has sharply increased and the media industry has generally entered shaky ground with layoffs hitting legacy and new media alike. Fox was in around 90 million households in 2016, but today that number has dropped to 70 million. Despite this, the network has posted viewership gains.

Night four of the convention was the most watched with Donald Trump taking to the stage following an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally just a week ago. According to early Nielsen numbers, Fox News pulled a averaged a whopping 8.8 million viewers and around 1.7 million in the 25-54 demo during its coverage from 10 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Those ratings hit nearly 10 million during the 10 p.m. hour while Trump was speaking. The network was averaging 1.9 million in the 25-54 demo during this time. During that hour, Fox held three-quarters of the cable news viewing audience.

If you include Fox Business Network’s simulcast of the event, Fox put up by far the highest-rated cable news coverage in primetime viewers. CNN and MSNBC saw slight boosts to their ratings on this night too, but both networks were still overshadowed by Fox. CNN averaged 1.9 million from 10 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., while MSNBC pulled 1.1 million overall and about 140,000 in the demo. During the 10 p.m. hour, CNN’s ratings pushed to over two million and MSNBC rose to 1.2 million.