# Fox News Tops October Ratings, But Viewership Drops Vs. 2025; MS NOW And CNN Show Gains As Midterms Approach

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/fox-news-tops-october-ratings-but-viewership-drops-vs-2025-ms-now-and-cnn-show-gains-as-midterms-approach/
- Published: 2026-10-28T19:56:26+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-28T20:16:42+00:00
- Original publisher: Deadline
- Original article: https://deadline.com/2026/10/october-cable-news-ratings-fox-news-cnn-ms-now-1237207374/
- Topics: Business, Elections, Markets, Politics

## Key points

- Fox News remained October’s ratings leader despite year-on-year declines.
- MS NOW and CNN gained primetime viewers.
- The Five averaged 2.7 million viewers.

## Summary

Fox News led US cable news ratings in October, but its audience was substantially smaller than in October 2025. MS NOW and CNN both gained viewers as the midterm elections approached, suggesting renewed interest in political coverage.

Fox averaged 1.68 million primetime viewers, down 28% year on year, while MS NOW averaged 925,000, up 14%, and CNN 598,000, up 19%. Fox’s five most-watched cable news programmes led in total viewers, with The Five averaging 2.7 million; MS NOW’s top programme was The Rachel Maddow Show at 1.72 million, and CNN’s was The Source with Kaitlan Collins at 630,000. Fox also reported 3.8 billion YouTube video views through 27 October, compared with 2.96 billion for MS NOW and 2.36 billion for CNN.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.