Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch used Monday’s earnings call to reframe Fox News’ current ratings softness. His pitch to investors: the network is not losing audience to rivals. It is absorbing a post-heavy-news hangover.
The fatigue argument
Murdoch acknowledged that the year-over-year comparison is “difficult.” After 2025’s sustained political news wave, he said, the audience is simply watching less television. He called the pattern “viewer fatigue.”
His line to analysts: “Those viewers are not switching to another news channel, they are just fatigued and watching slightly less television overall.” He compared the moment to the 2006 midterms, when Fox News went through a similar post-peak lull before demand returned.
Fox News still outdraws CNN and MSNBC combined. The company’s answer is that cable peers are not the right comparison set; Fox prefers to benchmark Fox News against the four major broadcast networks.
The money is still working
The ratings decline has not stalled political advertising. Murdoch attributed about $50 million in midterm ad revenue to Fox’s national networks, $250 million to local stations and another $50 million to Tubi, the ad-supported streamer.
- National cable news is only one piece of a political buy that also flows to local broadcast and streaming.
- Fox News’ audience dip has not turned into a Fox-wide revenue problem this cycle.
- 2026 looks like a lull year between the heavy 2025 news cycle and the 2028 election ramp.
What buyers should watch
For media planners, the useful test is whether this is a total-viewing dip or a share shift. Murdoch’s explanation is that viewers are leaving the TV set, not switching to CNN or MSNBC—even as those networks are up significantly in the midterm cycle.
The practical move is to track share of total TV news time, not just cable rank. If total news viewing is down, a rank decline can still be a healthy franchise. If total viewing is stable, the loss is more dangerous.
For Fox, the next few months are about holding audience without a presidential cycle, while local stations and Tubi continue to capture political budgets. The 2028 cycle, with a new candidate slate, is the next demand reset.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
