Fox News notched its strongest ratings quarter ever during the first three months of 2025, with two of its shows drawing in particularly large viewership numbers.
The channel ended its first quarter of the year making cable news history with 2.2 million weekday viewers. It also garnered 3.6 million prime-time viewers from the 8 p.m. through 11 p.m. time frame, outpacing rival cable news networks NBC and ABC, which each got 3.1. million viewers in the same time frame. Additionally, this first quarter saw Fox News attain its highest quarter cable news share, with 65% of cable TV audiences tuning into the network in total daytime and 66% tuning in during prime time, according to data from Neilsen Media Research.
Among the shows that performed well in Fox News’s catalog this quarter was The Five, which became the first non-prime-time television program to garner the most viewers for 14 quarters in a row. The Five, which airs weekdays at 5 p.m., drew an average of 4.6 million viewers this quarter, 500,000 of whom were in the key demographic of ages 25 through 54.
Special Report with Bret Baier also experienced a healthy first quarter in 2025, as the weekday show, which airs at 6 p.m., had its largest audience in this time slot with an average of 3.5 million viewers, 404,000 of whom were in the coveted age demographic between 25 and 54-years-old. Highlights appearing on Special Report with Bret Baier in this quarter included an interview with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelensky on Feb. 28, which garnered 5.2 million viewers, and the show’s interview with Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team on March 27, in which 3.8 million viewers tuned in.
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During the first quarter of 2025, President Donald Trump returned to the White House to be inaugurated as the nation’s 47th president, with Fox News’s coverage of the event reaching 10.3 million viewers. The channel received “80% of the cable news audience share” for special programming coverage of the inauguration, outpacing its rival networks.
The first quarter also saw Fox News debut The Will Cain Show, which airs at 4 p.m. on weekdays and fills the spot left after Your World with Neil Cavuto wrapped once Neil Cavuto departed from the network in December. The Will Cain Show debuted in January and pulled in 3.5 million viewers, making it the highest-rated daytime show to debut on the network.
