The Lead
Pope Francis died early Monday morning. Fox News led the cable news coverage on the evening of his death, with MSNBC and CNN both seeing upticks.
On Monday, the network averaged 3.1 million viewers in primetime. Jesse Watters Primetime far outpaced his competition and the rest of the Fox News lineup on the evening. Watters’ program at 8 PM ET averaged 3.6 million viewers on Monday, April 21st. That topped the primetime show helmed by Jen Psaki for MSNBC, which had 1 million viewers, as well as CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, which saw 522,000 total viewers.
At 9 PM ET, the gap was much closer between Fox News and MSNBC. Hannity won the hour with 2.8 million viewers. However, the program hosted by Rachel Maddow for MSNBC averaged 2.1 million viewers. CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins was well behind with 498,000 total viewers.
Guteld! averaged 2.9 million viewers in the 10 PM window for Fox News, while The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell was at 1.6 million. The CNN show hosted by Abby Phillip in the hour got the highest viewership for the network in primetime at 546,000 total viewers.
Despite the breaking news with the death of Pope Francis, Fox News was the only network of the three biggest cable news channels to see a decrease compared to the previous Monday. On Monday, April 14th, Fox News averaged 3.2 million viewers, compared to the 3.1 million it featured on the day of the death of the Pope.
MSNBC, meanwhile, moved from 1.5 million viewers on the 14th to 1.6 million, while CNN saw slight growth from an average of 510,000 viewers in primetime to 522,000 viewers.
While Fox News was down in total viewers on the day of the death of Pope Francis, it was the only one of the three channels to see growth in the key Adults 25-54 demographic. On Monday, April 21st, the network averaged 392,000 viewers from that sector, up from the 355,000 it saw the prior week. MSNBC fell from 120,000 viewers to 100,000 in the demo, while CNN also dropped from 118,000 to 114,000 on that specific Monday.
Fox News Falls to Second-Lowest Primetime Audience of 2025
While Fox News was down in total viewers on the night of the death of Pope Francis, it doesn’t spell great news due to the performance from the week of April 14th.
During that week, Fox News saw its second-lowest primetime audience of 2025 with just under 2.5 million viewers in the window. The previous low for the network was when it featured 1.7 million viewers during the first week of the year.
In the first week of March, Fox News averaged just under 4 million viewers in the primetime window. However, that figure is slightly skewed by the coverage the network provided of the address by Donald Trump to a joint session of Congress.
Since that week, Fox News has failed to eclipse an average of 3 million viewers for a given week in primetime. The network has seen a ratings decline in three consecutive weeks in that sector.
Additionally, the week was the lowest figure in the key Adults 25-54 demographic for Fox News. It was down to 281,000 viewers from that category. That’s a 12% decline from the previous week at 321,000 viewers, which was the second lowest figure in the demo of 2025 before the latest performance.
The drop for Fox News coincides with an increase in viewership for MSNBC. During the first week of April, the network saw its second-largest audience of the year at 1.2 million viewers. MSNBC remained at that figure for the week of April 7th, and finished with an almost identical 1.198 million for the week of April 14th.
During that same week, CNN saw its second-lowest total viewership figure of 2025 in the primetime category. 470,000 total viewers tuned into the window for CNN. Only the week preceding the inauguration of Donald Trump was a lower total for CNN at 448,000 total viewers.
While Fox News and CNN have seen declines in recent weeks, they are not alone. Both Newsmax and NewsNation saw slight declines during the week of April 14th. Newsmax saw an 11% decline during the week, down to 261,000 total viewers in primetime. NewsNation, meanwhile, was down 3% to 93,000 total viewers.
MSNBC was the only cable network to see growth in the Adults 25-54 demographic during the week of April 14th. That network was up just under 7% to an average audience of 108,000 in the key demo.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
