Coverage surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine meant viewership growth for the cable newsers in the final days of February. CNN saw the most month-to-month growth as a result of its live coverage, but Fox News programming continued to deliver the most viewers.
The Five marked another month as cable news’ most-watched show, averaging 3.69 million total viewers in the 5 p.m. hour in February ’22 after having averaged 3.57 million viewers in the timeslot the previous month. The panel program averaged the second-largest A25-54 audience in February (548,000), according to Nielsen live-plus-same day data.
Tucker Carlson Tonight remains the top cable news show among adults 25-54. The program averaged 615,000 viewers from the demo at 8 p.m. in February after having averaged 560,000 at 8 p.m. in January. The program also averaged 3.62 million total viewers at 8 p.m., No. 2 on cable news and up from its January average.
At 7 p.m., Jesse Watters Primetime took third place in February (after finishing No. 5 in its debut month), followed by Hannity and Special Report with Bret Baier rounding out the top five.
Fox News Channel is home to a whopping 97 of the 100-most-watched telecasts on cable this past month—the top 10 cable news shows in total viewers—and the network had four shows that averaged more than three million total viewers.
The Rachel Maddow Show was MSNBC’s most-watched show for January (1.83 million viewers at 8 p.m.), slipping from No. 7 to No. 11 with the show’s regular host on hiatus. Anderson Cooper 360 remained CNN’s most-watched show for January, coming in at No. 23 with a 816,000 total viewer average at 8 p.m.
Here are the 10 most-watched cable news shows for Feb. 2022, as per live-plus-same-day data from Nielsen.
- Fox News | 5 p.m. /The Five: 3,692,000 / 20 telecasts
- Fox News | 8 p.m. / Tucker Carlson Tonight: 3,621,000 / 20 telecasts
- Fox News | 7 p.m. / Fox News Primetime / Jesse Watters Primetime: 3,100,000 / 20 telecasts
- Fox News | 9 p.m. /Hannity: 3,059,000 / 19 telecasts
- Fox News | 6 p.m. / Special Report with Bret Baier: 2,672,000 / 20 telecasts
- Fox News | 10 p.m. / The Ingraham Angle: 2,427,000 / 20 telecasts
- Fox News | 11 p.m. / Gutfeld!: 1,952,000 / 17 telecasts
- Fox News | 12 p.m./Outnumbered: 1,942,000 / 20 telecasts
- Fox News | 9-10 a.m., 10-11 a.m. / America’s Newsroom with Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino: 1,869,000 / 40 telecasts
- Fox News | 11 a.m. / The Faulkner Focus: 1,831,000 / 20 telecasts
Below, the full cable news program ranker: