Amid expectations that the November
midterm election will build TV news viewing in the coming months, cable TV news networks have had a relatively slow January start.
Fox News Channel was in the lead -- down 12% in the month
to land at 2.2 million Nielsen-measured prime-time average viewers -- while total day viewing inched up 4% to 1.4 million.
MSNBC and CNN had a tougher period -- partly due to
comparisons with the year-ago period -- falling 60% to 80%, depending on the daypart. These results were largely due to events that occurred a year ago.
Unprecedented live
coverage of the January 6 insurrection of the U.S. Capitol, and the news coverage in the following weeks, resulted in soaring -- and in some cases, record-breaking -- ratings a year ago.
A year ago, for January, both MSNBC and CNN had their most-watched month ever in total day viewers.advertisement
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Also, for January 6, CNN had its most watched day in
history. Fox News in January 2021 came in at third place in total day viewers for the month -- the first time since April 2000.
This year, MSNBC was down a big 56% to 1.2 million viewers
in prime time for January 2022; sinking 60% in total day viewers to 656,000. CNN dipped even more -- losing 77% of its prime-time time viewers to 633,000 and 74% of its total day viewers to
493,000.
Both MSNBC and CNN were at about the same levels in the previous month, December 2021. MSNBC was down 3% in both prime time and total day viewing. Compared to
December, CNN was up 4% in prime time, but down 1% in total day viewers.