September 10, 2026 7:42pm

The first night of Donald Trump‘s midterm convention failed to generate a ratings bounce for Fox News, with the audiences comparable or even slightly below regular primetime programming.

Fox News’s coverage of the convention dominated the primetime hours on Wednesday, drawing an average 2.3 million viewers. But that is less than its September, 2025 primetime viewership, when it averaged 2.54 million viewers.

During Donald Trump’s speech from 9 p.m. ET to 11 p.m. ET, Fox News averaged 2.5 million viewers. A year ago, during the month of September, Hannity drew an average of 2.89 million in the 9 p.m. ET hour and Gutfeld! garnered an average of 2.94 million at 10 p.m. ET.

CNN‘s primetime coverage averaged 441,000 viewers, compared to a 543,000 average in September, 2025. MS NOW posted 1.1 million viewers in primetime, an uptick from an average of 810,000 during the month a year ago. In contrast to Fox News and CNN, MS NOW carried little of Trump’s speech and stayed on analysis from Jen Psaki and Lawrence O’Donnell and their guests.

The figures are from Nielsen via Fox News.

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