CNN Bottomed Out in 2021—Will Viewers Come Back?

At the beginning of 2021, CNN was on top of the cable news world.

The network, which revolutionized round-the-clock news coverage when it launched more than four decades ago, had finally retaken the ratings crown from Fox News and pushed its conservative rival to third place for the first time since 2000.

Less than a year later, CNN’s viewership has shrunk—the channel is buried in third place, behind Fox and MSNBC after a series of controversies and scandals that ostensibly struck a blow to the news network’s credibility.

In fact, just this past week, the network averaged a paltry 585,000 total viewers in primetime, placing CNN all the way back in 17th place among all basic cable. Worse yet, the channel’s 120,000 viewers in the key primetime demographic were only good enough for 31st place among cable stations.

In other words, the future isn’t all that bright for CNN heading into 2022—and it’s not clear if there’s anything it can do to pull itself from the morass.

2020 was perhaps the biggest year ever for the cable news business. The world was suddenly hit with a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic at the same time that a dramatic presidential election unfolded. The seemingly unending deluge of news was then capped off by President Donald Trump refusing to accept his decisive election loss, sparking the climactic Jan. 6 conclusion with Trump inciting an insurrection in a desperate bid to stay in office.

While 2020 as a whole was the best year on record for CNN, it was the final quarter of that year and the first month of 2021 where the channel saw truly historic viewership.

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For the final year of the Trump presidency, CNN brought in an average of 1.79 million total viewers in primetime (Monday-Sunday) and a primetime audience of 522,000 in the key advertising demographic of viewers ages 25-54. The network’s 2020 total day ratings sat at 1.14 million viewers overall and 313,000 in the 25-54 demo.

CNN’s 2020 growth was explosive, especially compared to its two main rivals. For example, the network’s total day audience in the key demo grew by 90 percent, compared to MSNBC’s 33 percent and Fox News’ 46 percent bump. In primetime, CNN’s key demographic viewership rose by a whopping 102 percent, and its total viewership in those 8 to 11 p.m. hours jumped 83 percent.

In the fourth quarter of 2020 alone, CNN pulled in an average total day viewership of 1.48 million and 412,000 in the 25-54 demo. In primetime, the numbers soared to an average overall audience of 2.37 million viewers and 710,000 in the key advertising demographic. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, CNN experienced triple-digit growth across all the relevant metrics, including a jump of 176 percent in the primetime demo.

And that was all before the network’s biggest month in recent memory.

January 2021, of course, featured the one-two punch of the Capitol riot and then Joe Biden’s inauguration, delivering a compelling crescendo to the bonkers five-year-long Trump news cycle. While Fox News fell behind CNN and MSNBC for the first time in more than two decades, as disgruntled Trump diehards ditched the network for accurately calling the election results for Biden, CNN posted historic ratings.

For that wild month, CNN averaged a total daily viewership just shy of 2 million, with more than half a million total daytime viewership in the key demo. In primetime, the network’s average audience for the month swelled to 2.7 million viewers, with 795,000 in the 25-54 demographic. Once again, compared to the previous year, CNN was up triple-digits in all of its key metrics. The growth was astonishing.

And then the status quo came roaring back.

Within months, Fox News quickly regained its spot atop the cable news heap. And while the first three months of 2021 viewership looked good on paper for CNN (the network led all of basic cable in the multiple key metrics), the writing was on the wall. While viewership was significantly up compared to 2020’s first quarter, marking double-digit growth across the board, the ratings had begun to sink relative to the previous three months.

By the second quarter, it was clear viewers had grown disinterested and tuned cable news out. CNN was hit the hardest. While all networks suffered in the ratings, CNN dealt with a seismic shift: The network shed 53 percent of its primetime viewership from the previous quarter and 49 percent year-over-year.

Eventually, CNN fell out of the top five for all basic cable networks in primetime. In Q3 2021, its 822,000 average nightly viewership was only good for eighth place and showed an additional 10 percent loss from the previous quarter. Meanwhile, Fox News grew 9 percent in both total primetime and demo viewership from its second quarter.

CNN’s quarterly demo ratings sank to its smallest since 2014. The network experienced significant losses across the board, but most severely with viewers ages 55 and under.

And then CNN’s bottom fell out in the fall.