CNN doubled its audience in April, while MSNBC hit its best total-day ratings. Network news programs rose 39% since last year, gaining over 8 million viewers for their best numbers in over a decade. Cable news networks have become the most watched channels on cable and network news has been beating prime time programming. The pandemic is the next best thing to Walter Cronkite rising from the dead.
The New York Times is up to 6 million subscribers with an increase of 587,000 digital subscriptions that it attributes to "widespread interest in news of the coronavirus pandemic". Last year the paper was struggling to make it to 5 million subscribers. Digital subscriptions are up across the industry. Digital subscriptions rose 29% at the Dallas Morning News, 17% at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, and the Poynter-FactCheck's Tampa Bay Times boasted of tripling the rate of digital subscriptions.