Fox News was far and away the most-watched TV network during President Trump’s inauguration on Monday, a sign of both the channel’s dominance in cable news and the overall drop in Americans who rely on television to keep up on current events.
Roughly 26 million people tuned in live to watch Mr. Trump’s lunchtime swearing-in on the major TV networks, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen. The ratings figures were expected to be revised later on Tuesday and may rise.
But it appeared the TV audience was down from the nearly 40 million viewers who watched former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s speech in 2021, and the 38.3 million who watched Mr. Trump’s first inaugural in 2017.
The downward trend is in keeping with the country’s media consumption habits writ large, as more Americans turn away from traditional television and follow major events on websites, social media, and other digital platforms.
Fox News’s audience, however, was roughly in line with its 2017 viewership. About 10.3 million people watched Mr. Trump’s inaugural on the network, more than twice the number that tuned in to any other channel, according to the early data. That audience outstripped the 9.3 million who watched CBS’s telecast of this month’s Golden Globe Awards.
Viewership for CNN and MSNBC on Monday fell significantly from four years ago. CNN recorded about 1.7 million viewers, down from about 10 million for Mr. Biden’s inaugural. MSNBC, whose anchors lamented Mr. Trump’s return to office, was seen by 848,000 people on Monday, according to the early data. It had about 6.5 million viewers in 2021.