Which age groups watch ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox News most and how have those patterns changed since 2020?
Executive summary
Broadcast network news and prime-time audiences skew older: median ages for ABC, NBC and CBS viewers sit in the mid-to-late 50s and up (CBS median 58, NBC 57, ABC 55), while Fox’s audience is also older than the U.S. adult median though somewhat younger than CBS at times (Fox median reported ~52) — and since 2020 those broadcast networks have lost younger viewers faster as streaming and sports shifts redistributed audiences (median ages creeping upward and advertiser-friendly 18–49 share shrinking) [1] [2] [3].
1. Who watches each network now: median age and demo snapshots
Recent audience studies show CBS, NBC and ABC draw audiences substantially older than the national adult median — Pew gives median audience ages of 58 for CBS, 57 for NBC and 55 for ABC — while Fox’s audience is also older than average, with third-party analyses putting its median in the low 50s (Fox has long been characterized as having an older-skewing viewer base) [1] [2] [4].
2. Younger viewers: shrinking 18–49 and 18–34 share for broadcast, with Fox and sports as exceptions
The advertiser-coveted 18–49 group has contracted for the broadcast networks since 2020, with the median viewer age for CBS, ABC and NBC rising and the 18–49 slice shrinking faster than overall primetime losses; Fox and sports broadcasts have bucked that trend at times — Fox led 18–34 in some season tallies and networks that carry major sports (NBC’s Sunday Night Football, CBS late-afternoon NFL packages, ABC/ESPN Monday Night Football) have seen younger boosts tied to games, producing year-to-year spikes even as linear TV declines overall [2] [5] [6].
3. How patterns changed since 2020: streaming, sports and a clear aging trajectory
Across reporting, the dominant story since 2020 is audience migration away from appointment viewing toward streaming and delayed viewing, which disproportionately pulled younger adults off linear broadcasts and pushed median ages up for ABC, CBS and NBC — Pew’s industry fact sheets and trade analyses document substantial declines in network news audiences and advertiser spending since 2020, and independent trackers note that median viewer ages for the big broadcast nets have crept upward into the mid-to-late 50s and beyond [3] [2] [1].
4. Cable vs. broadcast: Fox’s growth and the fragmentation of news audiences
Cable news has evolved differently: Fox News increased its average audience between 2021 and 2022 and continued to post gains into 2024–25 in many reports, consolidating an older but highly engaged viewership and expanding off-platform reach (YouTube views cited by Fox) even as its rivals declined [7] [8]. That growth means Fox holds a large share of older adults who still watch linear news, while broadcast nets lose broad reach but retain older-skewing audiences [7] [8].
5. Caveats, competing interpretations and what data cannot resolve
These conclusions rest on differing measures — median audience age, Nielsen/Comscore averages, advertiser expenditure changes and one-off sports-driven spikes — and the sources vary by year and methodology, so precise numeric shifts by single-year increments differ across reports; for example, CordCuttersNews highlights long-term primetime erosion and streaming preference shifts while Variety and trade outlets emphasize sports-driven uplifts, and Pew frames declines in news appointment viewing and ad spending since 2020 [9] [10] [3]. The reporting reliably supports an older-skewing profile for ABC/CBS/NBC and a relatively older but resilient Fox audience plus episodic younger bumps tied to sports, but it cannot on its own produce a single uniform percentage change for every age band across 2020–2025 without access to the raw Nielsen/Comscore datasets [1] [7] [2].