Top-Rated Channels of 2025: TV Network Ratings Winners & Losers

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All channels ranked by ratings.

Complete Broadcast, Cable and Pay TV Ratings Primetime Ranker for 2025 in Total Viewers and Adults 18-49

By Michael Schneider



What a difference a Super Bowl makes. Last year, Fox was down double digits in Variety‘s year-end ranker of the year’s most-watched networks in primetime. But in 2025, Fox had the Big Game: And a a result, the network was up double digits in both total viewers and adults 18-49 (where it was No. 1).

But don’t count out the strength of regular programming, as CBS — even sans Super Bowl, which it broadcast in 2024 — managed to stay No. 1 in total viewers thanks to series like “Tracker” and “60 Minutes.” ABC, meanwhile, was up 5%, after being virtually flat in 2024 — meaning for two years in a row, the Alphabet net has managed to keep the viewership erosion at bay. In an age where primetime numbers are naturally going down as audiences flock to streaming, that’s nearly a miracle. (Well, and ABC has been helped by airing more NFL Monday Night Football games the past two years.)

This reps the first year that Nielsen’s big data + panel ratings were implemented, which now mix both Nielsen panel data from viewers along with set-top box and smart TV datasets. That has caused some grumbling in the industry, given some missing data and inaccuracies that have been found. It also makes year-to-year comparisons that might be a bit apples and oranges. Most noticable in this year’s charts are a stabilization in the primetime ratings for kids’ networks Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. After years of annual double-digit declines, Disney was down slightly in 2025, and Nick was actually up (both saw gains in 18-49). No one believes that kids have suddenly started watching linear again — but no one can really explain the change there, other than perhaps a quirk in this year’s methodology.

Tomorrow, Variety will share the ranker of this year’s most-watched primetime telecasts. But here, we recount which networks were up and down in 2025.

WINNERS

Fox Corp.: Fox famously downsized after selling its studio operations and most of its networks to Disney — but the channels it held on to did quite well in 2025. Fox was up 10% in both total viewers and adults 18-49 (where it was No. 1), thanks to the power of the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Fox News defied the post-election downward trend seen by MS Now (formerly MSNBC) and CNN.

The CW: Speaking of controversial companies that had reason to cheer, Nexstar saw its The CW network climb 13% in total viewers, while Newsnation grew 16% — albeit, from low numbers. But a shift toward more live sports is clearly having an impact on The CW, which also saw its adults 18-49 rating climb a hair.

ESPN: Sports! ESPN’s still got it, and this year climbed 18% — the most of any network in the top 30 among total viewers. The other big story is ESPN in adults 18-49, where this year it’s one of the Big 4 — jumping 10% to rank as the No. 4 network in primetime, beating out CBS.

TruTV: Ooh la la! The French Open clearly had an impact on Tru TV, a channel that has gone through many lives (starting as Court TV, then later as a reality-focused channel, then the comedy-focused home of “Impractical Jokers”). This year, which this year shed most of its remaining comedy product (“Impractical Jokers” is now on TBS) to focus even more as a secondary home for TNT Sports fare. That paid off when it came to the French Open, which included wall-to-wall replays and coverage on Tru TV. Ratings for the full tournament were up 25% this year on TNT and TruTV, and that probably explains why TruTV bucked the trend of cablers (including its other Warner Bros. Discovery siblings), jumping 46% in viewers and 27% in 18-49. (Again, those percentages are huge because TruTV was coming in at a much smaller audience.)

LOSERS

Families: Channels with “Family” in their titles did not fare well in 2025. Family Entertainment TV, down 29%. Great American Family, down 18%. Hallmark Family, down 14%. Discovery Family Channel, down 22%. To be fair, it’s tough out there for virtually all linear cable networks. If families are still watching TV together, it’s not on these “family” channels.

Dr. Phil: One-time talk powerhouse Dr. Phil McGraw launched his Merit Street TV network (now just “Merit TV”) in 2024 and got on the board with a paltry average of 27,000 viewers. Just a year later, Merit Street Media filed for bankruptcy and sued its joint venture partners at the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The channel still exists as a shell of its ambition, and in 2025 dropped the most of any network on our ranker: down 41%, to an average of just 16,000 viewers in primetime.