OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Fox News continues to crush all cable news programs in the ratings.
The hit show “The Five” once again led all cable news shows in total viewers on Monday, racking up a whopping 3.4 million viewers.
Perhaps more impressively, Fox News beat both ABC and NBC across primetime on Monday night, averaging 2.69 million total viewers. ABC averaged 2.42 million total viewers in prime time, while NBC averaged 2.17 million total viewers across prime time.
Per Mediaite, below are the total day averages in total viewers and the 25-54 demographic for all cable news programs:
Total viewers:
CNN: 583,000
Fox News: 1.85 million
MSNBC: 818,000
25-54 Demo:
CNN: 123,000
Fox News: 274,000
MSNBC: 96,000
Here are the prime time averages — encompassing shows which air from 8-11 p.m. — in total viewers and the 25-54 demo.
Total viewers:
CNN: 711,000
Fox News: 2.70 million
MSNBC: 1.52 million
25-54 Demo:
CNN: 151,000
Fox News: 424,000
MSNBC: 176,000
This has also been a huge year for Jesse Watters, who is a co-host on “The Five” and now has his own show on the network.
Waters took over as the permanent host of the 7 PM EST weekday time slot this week on Fox News and he raked in 3.8 million total viewers on his first day. That represented the network’s best ratings in that timeslot in more than a year.
In fact, Watters’ debut scored double the viewership for the hour compared to the same day in 2021 and more viewers than every “Fox News Primetime” telecast since the show launched last year with a rotating cast of hosts.
In fact, Watters drew more viewers — including 537,000 in the advertiser-coveted age demographic of 25 to 54 — than Fox News has gotten at the 7 p.m. slot since early 2021.
Notably, “Jesse Watters Primetime” got more viewers than ABC’s “The Bachelor.” CNN’s 7 p.m. offering, “Erin Burnett OutFront,” drew 700,000 total average viewers, while MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” netted 1.2 million, giving “Jesse Watters Primetime” a 446% advantage and a 216% advantage over each of them respectively.
Watters recently spoke about his new show and gave an idea of what he envisions for the program long-term.
He said that it would be “an entertaining hour with news and politics and culture, crime, tabloid — everything.”
“We’re also going to be debuting something,” he said. “You know how my mom’s always texting me? We didn’t think that was fair for just my mom to be able to text me, so we’re going to be putting out a number where the whole country can text me. We’re going to have an open line of communication with the country, so I’ll be listening to them.”
He promised that his viewers would play an active role in the show.
“That’s what the show is about: Listening and then rallying for the people. We’ll be having a segment at the end of each show where I will be putting people’s texts on the air and I’ll be responding to them because we want to hear from the people,” the host said.
“I’m going to be deciding the entire hour what I want to do. It’s my show,” the host said. “The producers on ‘The Five’ usually kind of set the rundown, with some input from the hosts … and it’s a very entertaining show and that’s why people tune in, but this more of a solo hosting gig and this is my hour so I’m going to be doing topics that I care about, whether it’s getting fatter paychecks, whether it’s controlling the border, whether it’s political correctness.”
“The Five” also added a new, permanent co-host in Jeanine Pirro, who ended her own weekend show “Justice” to join the ensemble cast.
