Significantly fewer individuals watched the prime-time election coverage in 2024 compared to 2020, as revealed by the most recent Nielsen ratings analysis.
Approximately 42.3 million people followed the election results on Tuesday evening across 18 networks. This marks a 25 percent decrease from the 2020 election, which attracted 56.9 million prime-time viewers.
It remains uncertain how many of those viewers opted for streaming services or social media platforms for their news—often referred to as “cord cutting”—compared to those who chose not to watch at all. Some analysts suggest that the decline in viewership could be partly due to this year’s race not being nearly as competitive as that of 2020.
The Fox News Channel topped the viewership charts, averaging 10.3 million viewers from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET, according to a report by the Los Angeles Times. Following them was MSNBC with an average of 6 million viewers, then ABC (5.7 million), NBC (5.5 million), CNN (5.1 million), CBS (3.6 million), and the Fox broadcast network (2 million).
This marked the first occasion that MSNBC outperformed CNN during a presidential election night. The viewership for the Atlanta-based network saw a nearly 50 percent decline from the 2020 election, when 9.6 million people were tuned in.
