The Fox News Channel scored the highest ratings of any broadcast or cable network in prime-time with its coverage of the 2024 election on Tuesday, according to preliminary data released by Nielsen.
The data showed 9.8 million households watched coverage of Election Night on Fox News between the hours of 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Eastern Time, the highest average audience across all television.
ABC News was the most-viewed broadcast network out of the “Big Four,” and second across all television, with 5.7 million people tuning in during East Coast prime-time hours. MSNBC was not too far behind, with an average audience of 5.5 million watching coverage hosted by Rachel Maddow on the cable network, while NBC News grabbed 5.3 million households with the network’s Election Night special.
CNN finished third among cable news channels and fifth overall, with just 4.7 million viewers tuning in to the network’s Election Night coverage. The figure represented a 50 percent drop compared to CNN’s Election Night coverage in 2020, and was the first time MSNBC topped CNN in either network’s history.
CBS placed third among broadcast networks and sixth overall, with an average prime-time audience of 3.5 million. The Fox network was last among the broadcast networks, with its coverage earning 2.1 million viewers. Fox’s Election Night special was produced by Fox News Media, but was separate from the Fox News Channel’s broadcast.
Fox Business Network — which simulcast most of its coverage from the Fox News Channel — earned 710,000 viewers, while NewsNation pulled in around 257,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. The Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday that NewsNation was the first channel to call the election for former President Donald Trump, though it was actually tied with Scripps News; both NewsNation and Scripps News relied on Decision Desk HQ for their calls.
Across its various Election Night programming specials, Fox News Media drew 13 million viewers in prime-time. That count includes the Fox News simulcast on Fox Business Network, as well as streaming coverage on Fox News Digital and Fox Nation. Like the Fox network, Fox News Media produced a separate Election Night special for Fox Nation.
Fox News also had the highest average prime-time viewership among adults between the ages of 25 and 54 years old (A25-54), the demographic most-attractive to cable news advertisers. According to Nielsen, 2.9 million A25-54 viewers watched Election Night coverage on Fox News in prime-time, compared with 2 million A25-54 viewers who watched CNN and 1.6 million who watched MSNBC. NewsNation grabbed just 65,000 A25-54 viewers in prime-time.
“Fox News dominated every aspect of this historic election cycle from primary debates to town halls to being the only network to conduct interviews with all four candidates in both parties in a one-week span as Bret Baier helmed the most buzzed about interview of the race,” Suzanne Scott, the CEO of Fox News Media, said in a statement to The Desk on Wednesday. “I am extremely proud of our team’s commitment to delivering the top reporting and analysis to the largest and most politically diverse audience in news, and once again beating every broadcast and cable network across the board.”
