‘Exhausted’ Americans are tuning out politics, according to TV ratings and new poll

While cable news networks CNN and MSNBC continue to see a massive post-election drop in their television ratings, a new Associated Press poll finds that most Americans are worn out since Donald Trump’s electoral victory and have tuned out from political news.

Conducted by the AP and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in early December, the survey found that roughly two-thirds of respondents said they “have recently felt the need to limit media consumption about politics and government because of overload.” Some participants explained why they felt fatigued and needed to step away.

“People are mentally exhausted,” Ziad Aunallah, a 45-year-old Democrat from San Diego, said. “Everyone knows what is coming and we are just taking some time off.”

The poll also shows that politics stands out in terms of media consumption, as Americans are still interested in news about climate change, the economy, and foreign conflicts

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Another Democratic respondent to the AP poll said that the election news on CNN and MSNBC had taken up too much of his time, adding that “the last thing I want to watch right now is the interregnum.”

Indeed, about seven in 10 Democrats told the AP they are taking a break from political news. While the numbers weren’t as high for Republicans, who have been celebratory over Trump’s win, about 60 percent still said they also needed to step away from politics. The same number of independents had similar views.

The political fatigue and the exhaustion Democrats are feeling from Trump’s victory are playing out in plummeting viewerships of CNN and MSNBC.

Since the election through last week, CNN has seen its total day audience sink 35 percent to just 331,000 viewers. In primetime, the network is averaging 400,000 viewers, a post-election drop of 46 percent, according to Nielsen Media Research.

MSNBC, which has long been identified as an anti-Trump destination for liberals, has seen its total day audience plummet 47 percent, and its primetime viewership has fallen 54 percent to an average audience of only 615,000 viewers. The ratings woes have gotten so dire for the left-leaning channel that it was recently beaten in the coveted 25-54 advertising demographic by NewsNation, a smaller “centrist” cable channel that typically pulls in a fraction of MSNBC’s ratings.

On the other hand, Fox News has seen a ratings surge following the election. The conservative cable giant, which appeals directly to Trump supporters and has seen several of its on-air personalities join the incoming president’s administration, is up 12 percent in primetime with an average of 2.65 million viewers. It also commands 72 percent of the cable news viewership post-election in primetime.

At the same time, it is not a new phenomenon for fans of a losing presidential candidate to tune out of partisan cable news following an election. MSNBC witnessed the same thing in 2016 after Hillary Clinton lost to Trump, only for “Resistance” liberals to soon flock to the network after Trump took office.

Fox News also saw disgruntled MAGA viewers flee the right-wing network after Trump’s 2020 loss, outraged over the channel’s early but accurate call of Arizona for Joe Biden. At one point, the highly watched network briefly found itself in third place behind CNN and MSNBC, only for conservative viewers to tune back in after Biden’s inauguration and once again make it the top-rated cable channel.

Neither CNN nor MSNBC are conceding defeat yet, mainly pointing to the historical trends of a new president’s opponents tuning back in after the election depression wears off. Both networks also highlighted overall ratings victories for 2024 in year-end press releases, while CNN boasted about its streaming and digital traffic.

“I’ll be tuning back in once the clown show starts,” Aunallah told the AP. “You have no choice. Whether or not you want to hear it, it’s happening. If you care about your country, you have no choice but to pay attention.”

Still, it could be a bumpier ride for the networks compared to 2016. More and more Americans are cutting the cord from cable companies, and the post-election audience erosion is more severe for CNN and MSNBC than previous post-election slumps.

It also remains to be seen how the corporate strategies of each network play out throughout the new administration. MSNBC’s parent company Comcast is spinning the network off — along with its other cable properties — into a new company, eventually cutting the channel’s ties to NBC News.

CNN, meanwhile, is leaning more into its digital platforms, launching a new paywall feature while noting that its websites average nearly 150 million visitors a month.

As for what the cable news networks can do to once again engage those who’ve become exhausted by politics, some of those polled said the channels “have to talk about issues, and you have to stop talking about Trump” to expand their audiences.

“It’s kind of their own fault that I’m not watching,” Aunallah added. “I felt they spent all this time talking about the election. They made it so much of their focus that when the main event ends, why would people want to keep watching?”