Donald Trump Thinks Cable News Ratings Are Down Because He’s Not Being Talked About Enough

Former President Donald Trump spent the last day of 2022 reflecting—not on the many legal challenges he faces in the new year, and not on the 2024 presidential campaign he kicked off in November that has been widely panned as “low energy,” but on the cable news networks and how they seem to have moved on from the man who was long considered “good TV.”

In a message published Saturday to his Truth Social platform, Trump suggested that ratings declines the cable news networks experienced in 2022 are all, essentially, about him. “Wow!!! So while Trump Hating CNN & MSNBC (MSDNC!) RATINGS are both at record lows, numbers that they have never seen before (“they’re toast”),” Trump wrote. “Fox News Ratings are also way down because they never say “Trump” or TRUTH, never talk about the Rigged Presidential Election, and is a Fake Polling Network. Our giant MAGA base, much bigger than anyone knows, does not like watching Fox play their games. Their Ratings will continue to sink. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

CNN, MSNBC and Fox News will beg to differ with just about every assertion detailed above. For its part, Fox News had a fantastic 2022—cruising to its seventh consecutive year as the most-watched network in all of cable television, with an average prime time audience of 2.33 million viewers. And while all of the cable news networks saw viewership dip from 2021, Fox News was down just 1% among total viewers in prime, and down 7% in the key demo (adults 25-54). It’s debatable if that can be considered “way down,” and the assertion that the year-over-year drops are “because they never say Trump” is perhaps best described as a stretch.

While it’s true that CNN and MSNBC each had their lowest-rated years in 2022 (MSNBC was down 21% in prime time, while CNN dropped 33%), neither network could be considered “toast.” CNN admittedly had a lousy year filled with setbacks, misfires and deep cost-cutting, MSNBC made significant gains, including toppling CNN from its traditional perch as the most-watched network on major news nights.

On a hotly-contested mid-term Election Night, MSNBC drew a total audience of 3.1 million viewers, with the network’s “Decision 2022” live coverage led by Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace and Joy Reid marking the first time since the network’s debut in 1996 that MSNBC has out-delivered CNN on a mid-term or presidential election night. CNN drew 2.477 million viewers, putting the original cable news network in the unfamiliar position of having the lowest-rated coverage of any of the major broadcast or cable news networks, and the network’s lowest-rated election night in more than two decades.

And while Donald Trump won’t want to admit it, his name was mentioned many, many times on Election Night as his endorsed candidates fell to defeat after defeat. And with the exception of CNN, which can only hope 2023 brings better things, the dips in viewership for cable news are actually a result of the ebb and flow of major news events and the general trends of how people consume their news. Donald Trump may think it’s all about him, but the stumbling start to his campaign hints at a more painful truth: maybe it’s him who’s “toast.”