CNN Ratings Disaster: Primetime Audience Tumbles Below 500,000

CNN’s primetime ratings on Wednesday dipped below 500,000 viewers, with less than 100,000 of those coming from the 25-54-year-old demographic.

CNN’s ratings dipped below 500,000 after 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday evening during “The Source with Kaitlan Collins,” according to AdWeek. Collins pulled 464,000 total viewers while “NewsNight with Abby Phillip” in the 10 p.m. hour followed with 459,000. “Laura Coates Live” finished off primetime’s 11 p.m. hour for CNN with 269,000.

“Anderson Cooper 360” was the only primetime CNN performance with over half-a-million viewers, pulling in 535,000.

All the network’s primetime shows failed to break 100,000 viewers for the coveted 25-54 demographic. Cooper had the best showing with 93,000, then Phillip with 90,000, then Collins with 76,000, and Coates ended the night with just 46,000 viewers in the age group.

 The new numbers are a troubling sign for the network.

“CNN’s full-scale collapse continues rapidly. It reaches a remarkable new low led by @kaitlancollins and @abbydphillip: fewer than 500,000 viewers total in prime-time! That’s almost impossible to do even if you wanted it,” independent journalist Glenn Greenwald noted. “Also, they’re well below 100k for viewers under 55.”

CNN's full-scale collapse continues rapidly. It reaches a remarkable new low led by @kaitlancollins and @abbydphillip: fewer than 500,000 viewers total in prime-time! That's almost impossible to do even if you wanted it.

Also, they're well below 100k for viewers under 55. pic.twitter.com/4gG4jMWBTH

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 27, 2025

The best hour on CNN was still behind MSNBC’s worst hour and far below the worst hour on Fox News. “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle” at 11 p.m. on MSNBC brought in 799,000 total viewers with 99,000 in the 25-54 demographic. Fox News’ “FOX News @ Night” with Trace Gallagher brought in over 1.5 million total viewers with 194,000 in the key demographic.

CNN has struggled with ratings for years. One week in November saw the network mark its lowest-rated week since June 2001, bringing in an average of just 268,000 viewers. During the same week, Fox News averaged 1.4 million viewers.

In 2022, the failure of CNN+, the network’s shot at an online streaming service, rocked the outlet. Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company, invested roughly $300 million into launching the online platform and brought on big names such as Chris Wallace to sustain it, only for it to collapse shortly after launch.

Several years before that collapse of CNN+, the outlet settled a $275 million lawsuit brought against it by Nicholas Sandmann, who was maligned by many in the media as a student of Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky when he was filmed in an incident with a Native American activist.