Nolte: Fox News and CNN Suffer Brutal Ratings Collapse

Collage of CNN burning dumpster and Fox News Channel powerful primetime
AP/BNN Edit

Watching Disney and CNN collapse is like eating chocolate chip mint ice cream with both hands. It’s like having Ava Gardner in one arm and Pam Grier in the other. It’s like watching Chuck Norris kick a guy in the face after John Wayne shoots him. I’m in hog heaven, and the latest ratings news from CNNLOL is freaken glorious.

Remember that the metric of 100,000 demo viewers is considered the lowest acceptable number in the cable news business. “Demo viewers” are based on how many in the 25-54-year-old age group watch — advertisers like this age group, so advertising rates are based on this number.

Last week, CNN attracted only 89,000 demo viewers throughout its pathetic, super-white primetime hours.

MSNBC cleared 105,000. Fox News topped them all with 130,000.

Throughout its entire week last week, CNN attracted only 72,000 demo viewers, which ties with MSNBC. Fox News attracted 120,000.

Compared to this same week last year, CNN has lost 39 percent of its primetime demo viewers and 36 percent of its total day demo viewers.

But.

Without Tucker Carlson, when compared to last year, Cuck News lost 58 percent (not a typo) of its primetime demo viewers and 41 percent of its total day demo viewers.

Tucker Carlson speaks at the Turning Point Action conference on July 15, 2023. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Both CNN and Fox News suffered big losses in total viewers. Compared to last year, Fox News lost 32 percent of total primetime viewers and 21 percent of total total day viewers.

CNN lost 24 percent of total primetime viewers and 27 percent of total total day viewers.

Compared to its competition, MSNBC held fairly steady with only a 20 percent loss in primetime demo viewers, 11 percent loss of total primetime viewers, 19 percent loss in total day demo viewers, and 11 percent loss of total total day viewers.

Here are the numbers from last week, along with the percentages compared to this same week last year…

Primetime — Total Viewers/Demo Viewers

  • Fox News: 473 million (-32%) / 130,000 (-58%)
  • CNN: 503,000 (-24%) / 89,000 (-39%)
  • MSNBC: 171 million (-11%) / 105,000 (-20%)

Total Day — Total Viewers/Demo Viewers

  • Fox News: 1,078 million (-21%) / 120,000 (-41%)
  • CNN: 411,000 (-27%) / 72,000 (-36%)
  • MSNBC: 730,000 (-11%) / 72,000 (-19%)

Look at the news. We have a presidential campaign in full swing. Former President Donald Trump has been indicted about 87 times. Someone found cocaine in the White House. There’s a war in Ukraine, hot-button congressional hearings, and a culture war that continues to heat up.

And yet.

All three cable news outlets are shedding viewers.

At this point, it is no longer speculation that the many cuck moves made by Fox News — rigging the 2020 presidential race by calling Arizona too early, dropping Tucker Carlson, all that terrible left-wing polling, etc. — has alienated Fox’s core audience. And it doesn’t look like they are coming back.

CNN is losing viewers it cannot afford to lose. Fox can take a 30 to 40 percent dive and still hold the top spot. Every loss for CNN is a brutal loss. But CNN is in a death spiral. No one trusts CNN. CNN’s anchors are the most unappealing group of white people ever gathered.

Overall, though, cable news is dying because cable TV is dying. People are moving to streaming, which is much cheaper. Outlets such as CNN, which had been sustained by carriage fees that fed them a piece of everyone’s cable bill, will not survive outside of that ecosystem. CNN cannot survive on merit, on advertising income based on viewers. No one watches.

MSNBC and Fox News might also fail outside of that ecosystem. How many people would pay to stream Fox News and MSNBC? I doubt it’s enough to sustain either, at least not at the financial level they enjoy now.

Cable news is a cancer. Good riddance.

 Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

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