Wait, shouldn’t Fox News be dead by now?
In April 2023, I read the obituary. The company was reeling from a massive defamation settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. It clumsily and inexplicably fired the network’s biggest star, Tucker Carlson.
Ratings plummeted as conservative rival Newsmax plummeted, tripling viewership in Carlson’s time slot. Fox shares took a hit on Wall Street.
CNN’s Brian Stelter, who has made a career out of hating Fox, led a dance party at Fox’s grave. He predicted that Tucker’s sudden ouster would have profound consequences for Fox News, TV news and the Republican Party.
Well, the results are truly profound. Fox is completely destroying it and the Republicans are running the country.
Following Trump’s victory, Fox is once again completely dominating the cable news landscape. Last quarter, it averaged 1.57 million daily viewers and 2.64 million prime-time viewers, surpassing the ratings of networks ABC and CBS. Top 13 cable news shows? All Fox.
Meanwhile, MSNBC and CNN lost hundreds of thousands of viewers. MSNBC’s primetime audience fell 50%, and CNN had just 337,000 total daily viewers in the week following the election. Liberal viewers will lick their wounds and come back, but for now, Fox will win.
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So what happened? math.
There are many talented people at Fox who deserve a lot of credit, including Rupert Murdoch’s billion-dollar bets and the genius of Roger Ailes who built the network from the ground up. But underneath is a simple reality. Fox is the only conservative voice in a polarized television landscape. This is an outstanding structural advantage.
Imagine a town divided between steak lovers and barbecue lovers. There are many steakhouses, but only one barbecue joint. Where do you think the crowd will be? The real shock is that no competitor emerged.
But that’s exactly what’s happening in conservative cable news, where Fox has a virtual monopoly. Yes. Newsmax exists. But a decade later, it’s still producing mediocre TV and less-than-impressive journalism. It had a brief surge when Carlson left, but was unable to maintain the momentum, and Fox regained its ratings by that summer.
Zooming out to the broader media landscape, the ideological imbalance becomes even more stark. Network news shows have evolved beyond simple liberal bias to outright hostility toward conservative viewpoints. But those tens of millions of conservative eyeballs have to go somewhere. Fox provides it.
In 2024, Trump was a regular on the network and even his meeting with Kamala Harris broke records. It attracted more than 10 million viewers across multiple broadcasts, making it the highest-rated non-prime-time cable news interview of all time.
So, despite the 2023 drama, Fox emerges as the kingmaker once again. Despite being trapped in a declining cable business and despised by half the country, the network remains a preeminent platform for conservative politicians and television ideas.
The partisans will continue to be angry, but the numbers tell the real story. Betting on Fox News is still a losing proposition.
Ken LaCorte writes about censorship, media malfeasance, uncomfortable questions, and honest insights for people who wonder how the world really works. Follow Ken on Substack
