“We are lost,” commented a Fox News source recently, and there is a lot of data to back up the claim.
Nielsen’s figures for the month of January were released on Tuesday, and Fox took third place in the three horse news cable race for the first time since 2001. In addition, CNN was the number one channel in all cable channels.
Think of it this way: January was one of the biggest months of political news in a generation, but Fox failed to capitalize. Rather than competing by promoting correspondents and putting news coverage at the forefront, the network prioritized increasingly outrageous and radical opinions. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” essentially expanded to “Tucker Carlson Day and Night”.
This may well be Fox’s best bet from a business standpoint. “Regaining a basic audience that despises news, ignoring it and stating their opinions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week” makes economic sense, if not ethical. But for now, Fox is falling in third place, and it is shocking to see. The lack of editorial leadership is palpable, according to numerous sources on the network. And even in its weakened ranking state, Fox is reflecting and driving the radicalization of the GOP …
Pontification report
See how The Daily Beast team described Fox’s “free fall” on Tuesday: “Signaling a seismic shift in the media landscape as defeated ex-president Donald Trump hibernates in an eerily quiet exile in Mar-a-Lago , Fox News’s two-decade-long victory came to an abrupt end on Tuesday, while rivals CNN and MSNBC took first place in the ranking, respectively, across cable television. News is the continuation of a downward trend in which the right-leaning outlet lost the fourth quarter of 2020 to CNN and alienated Trump’s loyal viewers by calling Joe Biden in Arizona during election night coverage. “
There are certainly many reasons for these trend lines. The frustration of the Fox base with the election result is one of them. The availability of Newsmax as an alternative Fox is another. The confused policy at the moment, with President Biden visibly trying to work with Republicans, is another.
Public demand for news is another big reason. Between the pandemic, the power transition and the insurrection, many people want to report before they pontificate, and CNN was built for that. Fox is not. (Just count the number of CNN offices compared to Fox.) Fox is actively avoiding the news when producers believe that the boast will rank higher – on Tuesday night, for example, CNN and MSNBC showed the ceremony at the U.S. Capitol to Officer Brian Sicknick while Fox crashed Sean Hannity’s screaming festival. Laura Ingraham showed the ceremony only briefly when Biden visited the Capitol to pay his respects …
Is this Trump’s fault?
President Trump helped the network in the short term – but ultimately the network hurt Trump and he hurt them too. “Never before has a network been so closely linked to a commander in chief,” wrote Sarah Ellison and Jeremy Barr of WaPo on Tuesday. Fox is now experiencing “a kind of identity crisis.”
Now, according to several Fox sources, Rupert Murdoch is reasserting himself on the network and is determined to reverse the ratings. Ellison and Barr reported that Rupert “has been receiving a steady stream of calls with advice on how to deal with Trump’s political stance, which is dividing the Republican Party.”
“A work in progress”
Rupert Murdoch has acquired the habit of responding to registered reporter emails. It is a habit that I strongly support.
In response to WaPo, specifically to the vehicle’s report that Fox News President Jay Wallace is under scrutiny, Rupert wrote that “Lachlan, me and Suzanne Scott have complete confidence in Jay Wallace.” Your other quotes:
– “Chris Stirewalt’s departure had nothing to do with Arizona’s correct connection to Fox’s decision table.”
– “The new daytime programming is the work of Mrs. Scott and [new managing editor for news] Tom Lowell, and to some extent it is still a work in progress. “
The great unknowns
– Bill Keveney’s headline for USA Today asks the big Q: “CNN moves into first place, Fox falls into the post-election frenzy: Will this last?”
– What programming changes are reserved on CNN? What about MSNBC?
– Will the beginning of Biden’s presidency cause a wider drop in interest in news and in the audience?
– The redesign of Fox’s programming in January was just the beginning. What is the next?
– What do Fox’s rating trends, including a strong preference for sinister conversations over direct news, say about the right-wing audience?
– Certain Fox narratives (think of Benghazi and “Obamagate”) make viewers feel part of a campaign; what will be the next campaign?
– Newsmax has fallen from its post-election records, but it is still a painful thorn for Fox. Will the insurgent network find ways to grow?
Newsmax segment gets off track
Oliver Darcy writes: “Did you see
this viral video still? This is what happens when a network faces huge legal exposure. On Tuesday, Newsmax invited MyPillow boss Mike Lindell to a discussion of canceling Big Tech culture and ‘censorship’ – and ironically ended with the hosts effectively ‘canceling’ Lindell and ‘censoring’ his speech. The discussion
got off track when Lindell started promoting discredited conspiracy theories about electronic voting machines. Presenter Bob Sellers, who was clearly prepared for this possibility, intervened and rejected the allegations of fraud. But Lindell continued to press the claims, so Sellers asked the producers if they could move on: ‘Can we get out of here, please?’ I found this strange; on CNN, anchors have the power to close segments, rather than asking for help from the control room. Moments later, Sellers gave up and went out of reach of the cameras, while co-anchor Heather Childers remained with Lindell … “
>> The context: Newsmax has not yet been processed by Smartmatic or Dominion. But corporate legal threats clearly scared the network …
>> Naturally, some Newsmax fans sided with Lindell instead of the network …
Not an “all channel” issue
Oliver Darcy writes: “Nicolle Wallace asked former Senator Bob Corker on Tuesday if Fox deserves responsibility for all the misinformation that has arisen in the Republican Party. It was a good question (and the answer is, of course, yes), but
Corker dodged blaming ‘all channels’ for opinion programming. However, it must be emphasized: opinion programming based on a shared set of facts and the dissemination of direct advertising to millions of people every night are two completely different things and should not be confused … “
