‘Disastrously Bad’: CNN’s Primetime Viewership Plunged in July, Report Says
30th July 2025
CNN’s primetime viewership plunged to 497,000 in July—a 42 percent drop from the same time last year—leaving the network far behind its cable news rivals, according to multiple reports Tuesday.
The network “averaged only 497,000 total viewers in prime time for the month of July, despite unrelenting waves of major news,” journalist Oliver Darcy reported on his Substack. “MSNBC, by comparison, averaged 865,000 total viewers. Meanwhile, Fox News averaged 2.41 million viewers.”
While Darcy’s Substack is only available to paid subscribers, former CNN host Chris Cillizza quoted from the report in an X post, describing the numbers as “disastrously bad.”