Cable’s most-watched network is pulling its smallest crowd in years, and the midterms are days away.
Fox News averaged 1.1 million total day viewers in October 2026, its smallest total-day audience since December 2023, according to Nielsen data reported Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. Status first reported the slide from preliminary figures.
The network averaged 98,000 viewers in adults 25-54, the age group advertisers prize, its weakest month in a quarter-century. Measured against October 2025, total viewers fell 27 percent and the demo dove 32 percent. Nielsen measured both months on a Big Data + Panel, Live+Same Day basis, across a ratings period running Sept. 28 to Oct. 25.
Last October was a different month, with the audience then buoyed by enormous stories, including the Gaza ceasefire and the hostage release. The erosion started earlier anyway: Fox News shed 16 percent of its total audience and 24 percent of its 25-54 audience in the third quarter of 2026 alone.
Third in the Demo, Behind TBS
Fox News ranked third among all cable networks in adults 25-54, trailing ESPN and TBS, and fifth in adults 18-49. The network still leads overall cable ratings, finishing ahead of ESPN even with football back on the schedule, and it was the only cable network averaging more than one million total day viewers for the month. ESPN averaged 824,000 in total day.
Fox also held 53 percent of the combined cable news audience in total day and 52 percent in primetime, drawing more total viewers than CNN and MS NOW combined in both dayparts.
The Morning Show Trump Watches
The prime time block, the 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. hours overseen by Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, averaged 2 million total viewers, down 28 percent from a year earlier. In the 25-54 demo, prime time drew 183,000, a 36 percent decline.
“Fox & Friends,” the morning show that is a fixture of President Donald Trump’s daily viewing routine, spent a second consecutive month under one million total viewers and under 100,000 in the key demographic. The show posted its worst month in total viewers since July 2015, and its 25-54 audience sank to its lowest since June 2001.
CNN and MS NOW Are Climbing
The competition moved the other way. MS NOW’s total-day audience rose 16 percent to 588,000 total viewers compared with last year, and CNN’s climbed 3 percent to 402,000. MS NOW’s 25-54 audience jumped 38 percent to 62,000, while CNN’s rose 3 percent to 60,000.
In weekday primetime, MS NOW averaged 1.16 million, up 15 percent, and CNN 644,000, up 16 percent, with CNN narrowly ahead of MS NOW in the primetime demo, 124,000 to 117,000. Both rivals had year-over-year increases to tout in their October press releases — the kind of gains networks are ordinarily expected to post heading into a consequential midterm election.
On YouTube, Fox logged 3.8 billion views through Oct. 27, MS NOW nearly 3 billion and CNN 2.4 billion, according to data from the social media analytics firm Emplifi. Those figures measure video views rather than unique viewers and are not directly comparable to Nielsen television ratings.
“Trump doesn’t rate anymore”
The slide arrived while Trump publicly batters his preferred network. He slammed Fox News on Truth Social over its airing of interviews with Democratic candidates, among them Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, Kentucky Senate candidate Charles Booker and Iowa gubernatorial nominee Rob Sand.
“FoxNews is spending far too much time putting on the OPPONENTS of Republican Party Candidates, people that love our Country, and have Great Policies and Ideas,” Trump posted, accusing the network of “trying too hard to be Politically Correct.” He also complained that Republican figures are getting “blurred out” by the traditional media.
Trump raged after Fox News briefly cut back live coverage of his campaign rallies and urged supporters to switch to Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), the outlet Trump enthusiast Joe Seales launched in 2015 to stream rallies uninterrupted. His approval ratings are hovering near record lows. With polls about to open, Fox News carried his Texas rally live on Tuesday, Oct. 27.
One Fox host, speaking to CNN on condition of anonymity, described the view inside the network: “Trump doesn’t rate anymore.”
