A new report from Innovative Systems puts CBS as the most viewed channel among rural TV subscribers, beating out NBC, Fox News, ABC, and Fox.

Taken together, the top three channels — CBS, NBC, and Fox News — saw a 20% increase in television viewing in March, April, and May of 2025 compared to the three months prior.

The company used data from the set-top boxes in customers’ homes, set-top boxes offered to customers through their rural TV and internet providers.

Other winners this period included the following, according to the channel report:

• Regional sports networks (RSNs) and ESPN (placing sixth and seventh overall)
• Cartoon Network (placing 31, up 50 places)
• Court TV (placing 66, up 16 places)
• OWN (placing 57, up 17 places)
• TNT (placing 20, up 21 places)
• E! Television (placing 56, up 11 places)

Both local and national channels were popular in the study, and a variety of genres were represented.

For instance, four of the top five channels in the report double as a local broadcast channel. They show a mix of network entertainment, national news, local news, and local and national sports.

Because of the low quality of broadcast signal and decreasing newspaper presence in rural areas, these channels may be the only way for rural customers to learn about their communities.

That notion is supported by previous channel report data from Innovative Systems, which found that 47% of rural customers get live TV services from a local or national cable company, compared to 16% who got it via antenna and 13% who didn’t get any live TV at all.

Meanwhile, the 10 least-viewed channels also represented a mix of genres. They were the following:

• American Heroes
• Fox Sport 2
• VHI
• Discovery Family
• ESPNews
• Nick Jr.
• Cooking Channel
• Nicktoons Network
• Home Shopping
• C-Span

For broadband service providers and rural electric cooperatives, these channel report findings could impact the bottom line.

According to a recent Innovative Systems article, “Monitoring which channels your subscribers watch most — and reconsidering your existing contracts based on that data — can help your video service find the sweet spot for maximum profitability: a fair price for packages that include the channels people love to watch.”