The Lead
The newscycle in recent weeks has been largely void of major, needle-moving stories. That changed last week, as President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Newsmax was the biggest beneficiary of that news.
Newsmax saw a nearly 4% week-over-week increase in the primetime ratings for the week of August 11th. In total, the network averaged 209,000 total viewers in the window.
CNN was not far behind in growth, as that network saw a 3.7% increase in overall primetime viewership for the week, up to 467,000.
Fox News — which led the primetime ratings for the week — also saw an increase in viewership. That network saw an average primetime audience of 2.3 million viewers, an increase of just over 2% from the previous week. Additionally, Fox News led all of television — both broadcast and cable — in average primetime audience during the week. Both Special Report with Bret Baier and Hannity delivered more than 3 million viewers on Friday, as each program featured exclusive interviews with President Donald Trump.
While Newsmax, CNN, and Fox News featured primetime upticks, MSNBC and NewsNation each saw slight dips in their primetime audiences.
MSNBC dropped to 797,000 total viewers in the daypart, a week-over-week decrease of 3%. Meanwhile, NewsNation saw a nearly 11% drop during the week, finishing with an average audience of 90,000 viewers in primetime. The network did, however, see a 30% increase in the Adults 25-54 demographic, jumping from 10,000 viewers to 13,000 for the week.
Fox News saw a large key demo bump during the week of August 11th. The network finished with 245,000 viewers from the sector, a week-over-week increase of just under13%.
Similarly, Newsmax saw a 12.5% increase in the coveted demographic, jumping from 16,000 to 18,000 viewers in primetime.
CNN was up 7.7% in the key demo to 84,000 total viewers, besting MSNBC, which rose slightly to 74,000.
The year-over-year figures weren’t as positive for the cable news world as a whole. Only Fox News, which saw an increase of 3%, saw growth in the overall primetime viewership metrics. MSNBC saw the biggest drop off of primetime viewers compared to the same week in 2024, seeing a 44% decline. CNN also saw a large decrease, dropping 41% in total primetime viewers.
The losses were less steep at Newsmax (-21%) and NewsNation (-13%).
For the week of August 11th, Fox News featured 13 of the top 15 most-watched programs of the week in cable news, and each of the top six programs. The Five retained the top spot of the week. Meanwhile, the only non-Fox programs to crack the top 15 were The Rachel Maddow Show, which finished seventh with 1.9 million viewers, and The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, which was 15th with 1.2 million viewers.
NBC Nightly News Sees Largest Audience in 7 Weeks, But Still Trails World News Tonight
The meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin didn’t only cause a bump in cable news ratings. It also led to an increase in viewership in the nightly broadcast newscast sphere, as all three programs saw an uptick.
After hitting a new low in 2025 during the week of August 4th, World News Tonight bounced back over the 7 million viewers plateau during the week of August 11th. That figure represents a 2% increase week-over-week in total viewership.
It remained on top of NBC Nightly News, which saw its largest audience since the week of June 23rd, with 5.7 million viewers tuning into the Tom Llamas-led program. That’s a 7% increase over the prior week.
Meanwhile, CBS Evening News saw the smallest growth of the week, tallying just 12,000 more viewers than the prior. It finished with an average audience of 3.8 million, marking the ninth straight week the nightly newscast failed to surpass an average of 4 million viewers.
In the Adults 25-54 demographic, World News Tonight with David Muir stayed on top, averaging 931,000 total viewers. NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas was second with 776,000 viewers, while CBS Evening News was third with an average audience of 519,000 from the sector.
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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.
