For all the vast changes in the American media landscape, one decades-old truism had remained: The traditional nightly newscasts on ABC, NBC and CBS are the most-watched television news programs on any given day of the week.
In the second Trump administration, that is no longer always the case.
Fox News’s evening newscast, “Special Report,” hosted by Bret Baier, beat “CBS Evening News” on Tuesday. And not by a little. The back half of Mr. Baier’s show, which airs from 6:30 to 7 Eastern time, was seen by 1.8 million more people than CBS’s 6:30 newscast, a 47 percent advantage.
It was the second time in recent weeks that Mr. Baier, a cable news anchor, had edged out his old-school competition. His Feb. 28 program, which featured an interview with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine hours after Mr. Zelensky’s fateful White House meeting with President Trump, also drew higher ratings than “CBS Evening News.”
The audience for each of the ABC, CBS and NBC nightly newscasts is still almost always bigger than it is for Fox News in the same time slot. But in 2025, Mr. Baier is nipping at their heels. He is beating the top-rated newscast, ABC’s “World News Tonight,” in close to a dozen regional markets, and his viewership has outstripped “NBC Nightly News” in some major East Coast metropolitan areas, according to Nielsen.
What’s behind the surge? One explanation is the profound shift in how Americans consume news and information, as trust in traditional media outlets has fallen to record lows. Another is the success of Fox News itself, whose plethora of pro-Trump opinion shows — including, as of last month, a program hosted by the president’s daughter-in-law — have enjoyed record ratings since Mr. Trump’s re-election.
CBS, which changed “Evening News” anchors in January after the exit of Norah O’Donnell, is also struggling with a new format that has failed to entice viewers. The show, which trailed ABC and NBC before the change, has fallen even further behind.
And there’s something else. As Mr. Baier, 54, put it: “I don’t think it’s bad to have the commander in chief be a regular viewer of the show.”
Indeed, Fox News airs during flights on Air Force One, and the president often cites (and sometimes denounces) the channel’s coverage on social media. Politicians increasingly see an appearance on Fox News as the most efficient way to beam their viewpoints into the new White House.
The result has been a string of high-profile bookings for Mr. Baier. Last week, he was contacted by the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Felix Tshisekedi, who wanted to go on the show to pitch Mr. Trump on a minerals deal in exchange for American security aid.
Mr. Tshisekedi’s “Special Report” appearance on Wednesday followed recent interviews with the leaders of Britain, France, Greenland and Ireland. Then there was Mr. Zelensky, who kept his previously scheduled appointment with Mr. Baier despite the debacle that had unfolded in the Oval Office.
“I believe there’s a hunger for straight newscasts,” Mr. Baier said in an interview on Thursday. “Not to say that CBS, ABC and NBC don’t do that, but over time there’s been a general loss of trust broadly, and I think we have made headway in closing the gap.”
He added: “Definitely the show has impact because people watch it, and one of those people is the president.”
Mr. Baier, who succeeded Brit Hume at “Special Report” in 2009, has conducted many interviews with Mr. Trump, some tougher than others. Mr. Trump was irritated in 2023 after Mr. Baier pressed him on why so many of his White House appointees had stopped supporting him, and told him, “You lost the 2020 election.” The two seemed friendlier during an interview that aired before last month’s Super Bowl.
The men have also golfed together “a handful of times,” Mr. Baier said, including in Florida a few weeks ago. He said he had hesitated when Mr. Trump first invited him to play, but then decided it could be valuable.
“I think any journalist would take three and a half hours of off-the-record conversation with the president of the United States,” Mr. Baier said. “And if you say that you wouldn’t, you’re not being honest.”
The president holds Fox’s reporters and news anchors in lower esteem than the network’s opinion stars like Jesse Watters, Laura Ingraham and other leading Trump allies. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump laced into one of Fox’s White House correspondents, Jacqui Heinrich, calling her “absolutely terrible” in a social media post and declaring, “She should we working for CNN, not Fox.”
“She’s a solid reporter, and she’s a solid correspondent covering the White House,” Mr. Baier said when asked about that comment. “Sometimes I don’t post about every single thing, and sometimes my response is behind the scenes. But I support Jacqui a hundred percent. She’s a great reporter.”
“Special Report,” which began in 1998, has rarely encroached in the Nielsen ratings on the Big Three network newscasts, in part because Fox News, for all its influence, is available in fewer households than ABC, CBS and NBC. That remains the case, but from Inauguration Day through March 10, Fox News beat all three networks in prime-time weeknight viewers.
Mr. Baier moved to Palm Beach, Fla., last year and now splits his time between there and Washington, not unlike the president he is covering. (Mr. Baier’s home in Washington was bought in December by Howard Lutnick, Mr. Trump’s commerce secretary, whom Mr. Baier interviewed at the Commerce Department on the Feb. 26 edition of “Special Report.”)
As for Mr. Trump’s opinion of him, Mr. Baier said, “There’s always that give and take.”
“He says a lot on Truth Social,” Mr. Baier said. “I think analyzing President Trump is not about what he says or what he posts, it’s about what he does.”
