• by Wayne Friedman , January 3, 2025

Riding the wave of the Presidential election news period, Fox News Channel dominated cable TV news network viewership in prime time for 2024 -- up 30% to 2.38 million viewers year-over-year, according to Nielsen.

CNN grew 18% to 685,000 viewers, and MSNBC inched 1% higher to 1.22 million prime-time viewers.

In 2023, during a time of lower political news, Fox was down 20% to 1.9 million viewers from 2022 in prime time, while MSNBC grew 2% to 1.22 million viewers and CNN sank 20% to 591,000.

For 2024, Fox also dominated in total day viewers -- up 21% to 1.46 million -- while MSNBC grew 2% to 791,000 and CNN was flat at 481,000.

Fox was also the leader among key news viewers ages 25-54 -- up 40% to 294,000 in prime time, and 26% more to 186,000 in total daytime.

MSNBC grew 9% (133,000) in prime time and 2% (84,000) in daytime, and CNN gained 17% (147,000) in prime time -- down 3% (91,000) in daytime viewers.

Looking at some of the major broadcast network daily prime-time shows, ABC’s "World News Tonight With David Muir" grew 4.3% in impressions to total 46.6 billion for the year, according to estimates from EDO Ad EnGage.

National TV ad revenue was up 3% to $215.1 million for the year from 6,020 airings (up 4%).

NBC’s “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” rose 3% to 39.3 billion impressions -- growing 8.4% in national TV ad revenue to $172.6 million, from 5,770 airings (gaining 11%).

“CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell” was down 6.3% to 31.9 billion impressions, with ad revenue basically flat -- up 0.5% to $115.5 million. It ran 6.2% fewer ad airings, at 4,670.