The aftermath of President-elect Donald Trump’s presidential election victory continues to leave a proverbial blackeye over mainstream, legacy TV networks that said Republicans had no chance of winning the election.
But after Trump’s landslide victory, CNN might be in the biggest freefall of all the cable networks that bashed Trump…with the network’s ratings now so bad, it’s almost unbelievable.
According to TV viewership data, CNN has now fallen behind non-news cable channels like the Food Network and Hallmark Channel.
Despite a busy news cycle with Trump cabinet announcements, the murder of health insurance CEO Brian Thompson, and chaos in Syria, the ratings were bad for the network’s primetime shows like “Anderson Cooper 360” and “The Source with Kaitlan Collins” during the week of Dec. 2, according to a Fox News report.
CNN’s evening lineup averaged a total of 367,000 total viewers between 8-11 p.m.
Meanwhile, Fox News averaged 2.5 million total primetime viewers last week.
The audience for CNN wasn’t just less than Food Network, Fox News, and Hallmark Channel, but also MSNBC, ESPN, Freeform, TNT, Discovery, INSP, Hallmark Mystery, TLC, TBS, History, HGTV, USA, and Paramount.
In fact, it came in 17th in cable in primetime.
CNN just lost in the ratings to…Food Network!! The news outlet finished in 17th place among all cable stations last week in primetime.
It wasn’t like it was a slow news cycle either. There was the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the manhunt for the killer, the… pic.twitter.com/pPXiU2Xi7I
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) December 11, 2024
In the age demographic of 25-54, the news was even worse for the longtime cable news network, with only 67,000 average viewers.
This put CNN behind channels like TV Land, MTV, Adult Swim, Nick at Nite, and Comedy Central in the key demographic.
Fox News Channel, in comparison, averaged 280,000 viewers during primetime last week in the key age demo.
CNN’s freefall comes after recent news of both CNN and MSNBC’s ratings plummeting after Trump’s landslide victory.
According to Nielsen data reported by Mediaite, coverage of Trump’s election victory throughout the day on CNN on Thursday — just after the election — brought in 419,000 total viewers and in the key age demographic, just 91,000 viewers.
Over on MSNBC, the network had a total for the entire day of 596,000 viewers — and in the coveted age demographic, a total of 71,000 viewers.
Year over year, CNN’s audience was down 40 percent, while MSNBC’s numbers were also down 23 percent.