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Fact check: What are the most popular conservative and liberal news outlets in the US?
Executive Summary
Across multiple recent surveys and audience-measurement reports, Fox News consistently emerges as the most popular conservative news outlet by audience reach, while CNN, MSNBC and legacy broadcast brands (ABC, CBS, NBC) are the most-used outlets among self-identified liberals or Democrats, with differences visible between trust rankings and raw usage. Key measures—trust surveys, audience size, and media-bias ratings—tell complementary but not identical stories about popularity and partisan alignment [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Why reach and trust tell two different stories about “popularity”
Recent polling and measurement separate use/reach from trust and show different leaders depending on the metric. A May 2025 survey reported Fox News, CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC among the most-used sources in the past month, with 40% of Americans reporting Fox News use and 36% reporting CNN use, while the same poll ranked The Weather Channel, BBC and PBS highest on trust and named outlets like Infowars and Breitbart among the least trusted [1]. Audience-measurement for Q3 2025 finds Fox News Digital leading with 94.1 million unique visitors and dominating multiplatform minutes, indicating high reach for Fox across platforms even as trust varies by partisan group [5] [6]. In short, raw audience numbers favor Fox News for conservative audiences, while trust surveys highlight public skepticism of partisan outlets and greater trust in nonpartisan brands.
2. How partisan identity shapes which outlets people call “popular”
Multiple studies demonstrate that partisan identity shapes both which outlets people consume and which they rate as trustworthy. Pew-era analyses and more recent 2024–2025 trust studies show consistent conservatives clustering on Fox News and Fox Business, while consistent liberals distribute their attention across CNN, MSNBC, NPR and the New York Times [3] [7]. The 2025 trust data reports Democrats placing higher trust in CNN and MSNBC and Republicans favoring Fox News and Newsmax, illustrating a persistent asymmetry in cross-party acceptance of outlets [1]. Popularity therefore depends on the audience you measure: among conservatives Fox News is dominant; among liberals the field is more plural and includes several cable, broadcast and public-media brands.
3. The digital footprint confirms conservative dominance on scale metrics
Commercial metrics from network reporting show Fox News Digital outpacing other brands in unique visitors and total multiplatform minutes, with Q3 2025 figures cited at 94.1 million unique visitors and double-digit billions of multiplatform minutes and views, establishing an unmatched digital footprint among U.S. news brands [5]. Linear TV primetime figures for the same period show Fox News Channel leading weekday primetime viewers with roughly 3.3 million viewers, with MSNBC and CNN significantly behind, reinforcing Fox’s lead on both linear and digital audience scales [2]. These audience-scale measures underscore Fox’s position as the largest conservative news brand by reach, even as trust and favorability differ by partisanship.
4. Liberal-leaning outlets: a dispersed coalition rather than a single giant
Unlike conservatives’ concentration on Fox, liberal viewers’ consumption is spread across multiple outlets, each strong on particular metrics. CNN and MSNBC remain primary cable options for liberals; national public broadcasters and legacy newspapers such as NPR, PBS, The New York Times and CNN are frequently cited as trusted by Democrats in trust surveys [7] [1]. The AllSides media-bias chart documents this dispersion and maps outlets across a bias spectrum, offering consumers a tool to identify their own information mix rather than endorsing a single liberal “most popular” brand [4]. The liberal media ecosystem is therefore characterized by diversity of popular sources rather than concentration in one dominant outlet.
5. How methodological choices change the “most popular” label
Which outlet is labeled “most popular” depends on methodological choices: survey self-reporting of past-month use, measures of trust, linear-TV ratings, or digital unique visitors. The May 2025 public-trust polling and legacy Pew analyses emphasize trust and partisan preference, while Q3 audience reports emphasize multiplex digital reach [1] [3] [5]. AllSides provides a different baseline by aggregating perceived bias across the spectrum rather than raw popularity [4]. Analysts and audiences must be explicit about the metric—reach, trust, frequency of use, or perceived bias—because each yields a different answer to “most popular.”
6. What’s missing, and where readers should be cautious
Available data show clear patterns but leave gaps: local news usage, demographic breakdowns beyond “Democrat” or “Republican,” and platform-specific audiences (TikTok, podcasts) receive limited coverage in these summaries, and such gaps affect conclusions about who actually consumes which outlets and why [1] [5]. Ownership motives and promotional strategies can shape reported metrics; network-released audience figures may serve brand narratives while trust surveys reflect broader public sentiment [5] [1]. For a comprehensive view, combine trust polls, independent audience-measurement, and bias-mapping tools rather than relying on a single headline metric.