April 2023 Ratings: Fox News Ratings Drop Post-Tucker, But CNN Down More Year Over Year

The cable news industry saw seismic shifts in April as two of its most well-known personalities were unceremoniously fired, Fox News settled a bombshell defamation lawsuit for a historic sum, and Donald Trump made history by becoming the first former U.S. president to be arrested.

While Trump’s arrest in early April, and his subsequent speech and surge in the polls, helped boost cable news viewership – particularly on Fox News – only MSNBC ended April with year-over-year gains for the month. Both Fox News, which fired Tucker Carlson, and CNN, which booted Don Lemon, ended April down compared to last year, with CNN seeing the larger decline

In fact, MSNBC’s ratings gains were so strong that April was the network’s most-watched month in two years. MSNBC landed as the second highest-rated cable network for the third month in a row, behind Fox News, which despiteCarlson’s ouster still finished the month on top.

Carlson’s abrupt exit following his last show on April 21st has led to a drop in Fox News’s prime time lineup, which allowed for multiple rare prime time wins for MSNBC in the final week of the month. However, the long-term ratings impact for Fox has yet to take shape.

Fox’s competitor to the right, Newsmax, saw an initial surge in ratings following Carlson’s ouster. That surge has abated somewhat in the days since, but Newsmax’s audience remains far higher than its normal numbers.

The Monday Carlson’s exit was announced, Newsmax hosts Eric Bolling and Greg Kelly both saw their shows rake in over half a million viewers – more than tripling their respective audiences from the previous Monday. By the end of the week Newsmax’s ratings were down 32 percent in total viewers and 46 percent in the key 25-54 age demographic. Bolling, however, remains up and on Monday brought in 473,000 total viewers — CNN’s Anderson Cooper by comparison had 624,000 viewers during the same hour and CNN dropped to 441,000 viewers at 9 p.m.

Notably, despite a significant drop from Carlson’s first quarter average of 3.25 million views at 8 p.m. to an average of 1.66 million for the week after his exit, Fox News still won prime time overall for the week with 1.46 million viewers. Overall in both total viewers and the demo, Fox beat MSNBC and CNN and continued its winning streak to 115 consecutive weeks.

For the month of April, Fox won prime time with 2.07 million total viewers and 240,000 demo viewers. MSNBC came in second with 820,000 average prime time viewers and 102,000 viewers in the demo. CNN landed in third place with 480,000 total viewers and 101,000 demo viewers across prime time.

Despite winning the month overall, Fox was down 12 percent in total viewers and 34 percent in the demo, CNN was down 18 percent and 23 percent in the demo compared to last April.

In total day viewers, CNN saw the largest year-over-year drop in April in total viewers dropping 18 percent compared to Fox News’s 15 percent. MSNBC was up in total day viewers 23 percent. While CNN still registered a year-over-year drop in the demo, April saw the network regain some ground from previous months and effectively tie MSNBC.

April marked the one-year mark for CEO Chris Licht, who is reportedly working on a “major rebrand refresh,” which will roll out in June. The rebranding will coincide with a major ad campaign.

Here are the total day averages in total viewers and the 25-54 category during the month of April.

Total viewers:

CNN: 480,000

Fox 1.29 million

MSNBC: 820,000

25-54 Demo:

CNN: 101,000

Fox News: 161,000

MSNBC: 102,000

Here are the prime time averages — encompassing shows which air from 8-11 p.m. —during the month of April.

Total viewers:

CNN: 587,000

Fox News: 2.07 million

MSNBC: 1.32 million

25-54 Demo:

CNN: 135,000

Fox News: 240,000

MSNBC: 149,000

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