Spring News Cycle Jolts Viewership For TV News on Social Video

An eventful March fueled yet another increase for TV news publishers across YouTube and Facebook, as data from Tubular Labs shows. As market fears grew and the Trump administration made waves with tariffs and sweeping policy changes, audiences were hooked on following along to stay informed. According to Tubular Audience Ratings:

• Fox News grew its U.S. unique viewers across Facebook and YouTube by 32% month-over-month, to 60.1 million, while minutes watched soared 26% to 1.6 billion (both 13-month highs).
• ABC News saw modest gains, growing unique U.S. viewers by 5% and watch-time by 1% month-over-month.
• CBS News increased its audience by 51%, with minutes watched up 29% vs. February.
• MSNBC grew unique viewers by 20% and watch-time by 28%.
• CNN’s unique viewers climbed by 21%, while watch-time jumped a staggering 80% month-over-month.

It’s important to note the content differences that got these news publishers to these numbers, as well: 

• Top videos on CNN, ABC News, CBS News and MSNBC largely revolved around tariffs, economic fears, or other policy-related topics – CNN, in particular, saw many of its top videos come from Canadian reactions to proposed American tariffs. 
• For Fox News, however, the top videos (by views) were largely devoid of similar conversations, and more focused on Elon Musk’s DOGE, human interest pieces and Ukraine. The most-seen Fox News video was a Facebook upload of a student almost getting hit by a car, and received 13.9 million views.