The Lead
MSNBC has been on a bit of a rollercoaster ride in the primetime ratings in 2025. Last week? The ratings were on the uptick again.
During the week of July 7th, MSNBC saw an average audience of 888,000 total viewers in the primetime window. That represents a 20% increase compared to the previous week. While the week of June 30th did include the Independence Day holiday and every cable network took a slight decrease in the ratings, the July 7th figure is on par with the number MSNBC saw during the preceding week of June 23rd, which it finished with 902,000 total viewers.
The gains for MSNBC were even bigger in the Adults 25-54 demographic. The network saw its average audience size rise to 86,000 for the week, up 23% compared to the prior week. That 86,000 figure is nearly identical to what the network featured during the week of June 23rd, when it had 87,000 viewers from the coveted demographic.
The network’s biggest audience of the week came from The Rachel Maddow Show on Monday evening, which saw just over 2 million viewers.
While MSNBC saw the biggest jump in week-to-week viewership, Fox News continued to dominate the cable news space. For the week, the network averaged 2.4 million viewers, marking the third consecutive week it eclipsed broadcast networks ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX in the primetime window.
Additionally, Fox News featured 13 of the top 15 cable news broadcasts for the week overall.
CNN, meanwhile, has seen its total audience decline in each of the past three weeks, after nearing a 2025 during the week of June 16th. That week saw the network finish with an average audience of 831,000 total viewers. The following week it declined to 609,000, while the week of June 30th saw 526,000 total viewers. In the most recent week, CNN averaged 484,000 total viewers, a drop of 8%.
Furthermore, CNN saw a 20% decrease in key demographic viewership during the week, dropping from 111,000 to 89,000 during the week of July 7th. While it featured the steep decline, CNN did still best MSNBC in the Adults 25-54 demographic for the week.
Newsmax and NewsNation each saw slightly diminished primetime audiences during the week of July 7th, compared to the previous week. Newsmax saw an average audience of 230,000 total viewers, down 8%. NewsNation saw its total audience decrease by 1% from the previous week, down to 111,000 total viewers in primetime.
ABC World News Tonight Leads Post-Holiday Network News Bounceback
While not everyone in the cable news realm saw upticks following the Independence Day holiday, the opposite took place during the network newscast ratings.
ABC World News Tonight with David Muir continues to lead the ratings in the space, as it was an increase from 7.2 million viewers to 7.3 million during the week of July 7th. That figure is 100,000 viewers shy of where the nightly newscast rested during the week of June 23rd.
While it saw an uptick in overall viewership, the broadcast was flat in the coveted Adults 25-54 demographic, ending the week with the identical 989,000 viewers from the sector it saw in the previous period.
NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas saw the largest week-over-week increase, up 2% to 5.6 million viewers. In the key demo, the newscast saw an 11% uptick in viewership with 856,000 viewers. It also surpassed what it had previously featured in the week ahead of the Independence Day holiday. In fact, the figure was the largest audience in the sector since the week of May 19th, when it averaged 872,000 viewers.
Since Llamas took over anchor duties for the program from Lester Holt, the newscast has only seen a 1.5% decline in viewership. In the six weeks since the torch was passed, Llamas has averaged an audience of just over 5.6 million viewers, while in the six weeks in advance of Holt’s departure, the broadcast averaged just under 5.7 million viewers.
CBS Evening News finished the week with an average audience of 3.9 million total viewers. That’s in line with where the network was ahead of the holiday week. It was up 4% compared to the week of June 30th.
In the key demographic, the network saw an 8% increase, up to just over 500,000 viewers from that category.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
MSNBC saw a nice bounce back after its main audience tuned out after the election loss. It is still in the same boat with total viewers, however, trounced by Fox.