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Can Fox News Turn Things Around?
Fox News is afraid over their steep ratings decline according to former Fox host Eric Bolling, who provided viewership statistics. The slide at Fox after the election was not surprising given their Decision Desk’s early call for Biden, as mentioned in the article. The slide for Tucker, Hannity, and Ingraham is more surprising.
Sean and Laura gave full-throated support for challenging the vote, and Tucker has led a jihad against the progressive alliance against Trump and the targeting of Biden’s China connections and corruption. You would think that the general answer for restoring Fox’s standing with its prior audience would be doing the programming that Tucker, Hannity, and Ingraham are doing. But, no, their ratings are down as well.
So what is going on? Part of it, no doubt, is disappointment and depression, making Trump supporters just tune out on any political programming. Part of it is that some portion of the audience is seeking more radical answers to progressive aggression than what Fox provides.
If true, I think Fox is done as the conservative powerhouse. You’ve got to dance with who brung you. After Roger Ailes, Fox seemed to want to tack away from conservatism. They wanted their news professionals to be seen as independent of the editorial slant.
This would have been fine if we weren’t in an age when you play fair, you lose. So “neutrality be damned, let’s go to war!” said Fox’s audience. But Fox did not go to war and now they have a much smaller audience. So, it will remain.
Published in General
Fox succeeded because it identified a market segment that other networks were not attracting (or trying to attract) and it went after that.
I have to ask, to what degree is Fox’s apparent recent change of policy based on honest business judgment and fiduciary responsibility to all its shareholders (of whom I am one) versus to what degree is it based on the personal political beliefs of controlling shareholders and board members…
They ousted Ailes and then their total contempt for their viewership showed through.
It is more important for them to be part of the outer party than to make money.
sure they can. They just have no desire too.
Yes.
The fact that the evening shows are down indicates to me that there’s more going on than dissatisfaction with the programming that precedes those shows. Is there a segment that is punishing Fox for its election night calls? Sure, but I think more significant numbers are really just sick of politics and/or heading to Newsmax/OAN.
I don’t watch Fox in the daytime, but still don’t have much of an issue with the programming from 5-8 pm, which is considerably less annoying than other MSM outlets.
I think Fox is in very big trouble with its base. My husband and I were longtime loyal Fox viewers until the anti-Trump debate moderation and the pro-Biden early election returns. I still check out the Fox News webpage about once a day hoping to see the anchors reach out to people like us but have been mostly disappointed so far. My husband, though, who watched Fox much more than I do, has completely walked away from the channel. He figured out how to download the Newsmax app onto his phone and now listens to it several times a day.
We are renovating our master bathroom right now, and my husband has spoken with a variety of workers and small business owners who have also switched over to Newsmax. Fox made a huge mistake in deciding to slant its coverage toward the inside the beltway and other elites, subtly insulting and abandoning Trump’s many supporters. Hannity, Ingraham, Tucker, and Dobbs may have to find another channel if they want to grow their audiences again.
The story of Fox’s demise has to begin earlier than election night. There were so many damning stories–interviews with him that went wrong, stories from staff members like John Bolton who had turned on him, and so on–about Donald Trump that came out over the six- to eight-week runup to the election that people like me were already seething. Those stories were picked up and widely disseminated by the mainstream media because of the all-too-human, us-versus-them dynamic that looks for breaks in the ranks of our enemies.
I saw this with Peggy Noonan and GW. She had been relatively supportive of his candidacy and of him personally throughout most of his first campaign and first term. Then one night she went to a White House dinner in year 4 of his first term, at a time when the antiwar global Left had turned against him and were rioting in the cities of every major country. Her column after the dinner described how she took advantage of the moment to tell GW what he was doing wrong and how to fix it. The column was smug in every way. In between the lines, it read “I made you, I can destroy you.” And that column was picked up on and widely reported by the Left’s mainstream media. I have never read her columns again.
That was the attitude of Fox News toward Donald Trump in the two to three months ahead of the election.
People are never going back.
I don’t understand why this adds up to a boycott of shows that are still ideologically to the right. Ratings are segmented. Why “punish” Gutfeld, Carlson, Hannity, and Ingraham because of what’s gone on elsewhere?
The loss of Ailes is the entire story. He was a rebel, he knew what worked, and he seemed to have a knack for picking interesting talent.
#RedEye was my gateway drug to FNC. I literally watched CNBC a bit during the biz day, but almost no TV except that. #RedEye had interesting people, weirdos really, and it was fun. And it wasn’t generic left. Gutfeld hosted, and did an original monologue every night. The guests were other FNC staff, comedians, and musicians. They made fun of the news. It was fun.
After Ailes, what is the identity of FNC? Generic news, only slightly less Commie. And it seems to be getting weird–the famous incident where the entire cast of Outnumbered seemed to be afraid to utter the name “Soros” was truly odd.
The fun, enterprising growth and realization of a concept is over. Now, it is just the same leftist hacks and ad sales types running the Titanic into the iceberg because that’s the job. As we all know, any org not explicitly right-leaning will over time become left.
Now, zzzzzzz…
It is holiday season. A lot of people–presumably the Judeo-Christian Right–are too busy and too tired to watch. :-) We will have to wait until January to get a true reading. :-)
But if the ‘ad sales types’ really have any influence in the organization, they should be lobbying against a me-too strategy shift which drives away viewers and reduces ad revenues.
Either that, or lobbying for a big reduction in their sales quotas.
I think some of the reason is that those segments go to YouTube/Twitter and platforms like that. That’s how I get my Tucker Carlson clips.
They just aren’t reporting on the election fraud news as it comes in like other places are, and that is the main reason I turn on the news these days. It’s the same reason I’ve more or less abandoned the main feed, I know there are good and important topics being covered there, but the election fraud is the one that will make or break America and it should be treated like 9/11 and they’re not doing that while other places are. There are only so many hours in the day that I can spend on checking the news, so until Laura, Sean, and Tucker start telling me some new information about how the hijackers did it and how we’re gearing up to respond I’ll go elsewhere. Also, trust lost is not easily regained.
Are anyone’s ratings up? Is the pie shrinking, or is it being split differently? I’m watching less of everything.
I haven’t watched since election night. However I listen to Rush on a Fox Radio channel and put my finger in my ears when the news comes on. I am not crazy about Newsmax. It’s not informative enough. Waiting for the Trump Trumpet channel if we are stuck with Biden or Commie Harris. Fox can’t get me back short of a nightly apology and promises never to go left again.
Part of the reason I cut the cord (cable/dish TV) was because I could not buy any package that didn’t include morally objectionable channels. And it has only gotten worse, with politically objectionable channels added to the mix. I didn’t then, and don’t now, want any part of my subscription fees going to the operators of those channels.
I expect the same sort of feeling is spreading among Fox viewers–if the channel’s management is active working against my interests, why would I want to help them generate ad revenue on those programs to fund their nefarious ways?
Fox is toast. They’d probably have to fire their entire leadership team and replace with outright conservatives to change the trend against them.
I saw Trump as our chance to turn things around. Using the election process failed. We were stabbed in the back by Republicans and screwed for four years by Democrats. I believe the country is toast and it is pointless to watch the news. My TV is mostly off. My Bose 901 speakers and my classical CD collection provide my entertainment now. Even my podcast listening is down by a lot.
My thoughts too. I don’t want conservatives to cut off their noses to spite their face. Fox still reports on things that others won’t. They still have many hosts I like. I don’t think Newsmax/OAN have the footprint of Fox but I support them too. I don’t need an echo chamber and refuse to watch any of the other MSM outlets because they are sold their souls a long time ago. I haven’t been watching lately because I’m just sick of it all. I will regroup and re-engage and so I hope that Fox doesn’t go completely over to the darkside.
Excellent point. It is utterly maddening that so many are complacent and accepting of anything short of a lawful vote.
My Fox viewing has increased dramatically this year, to four Tucker Carlson segments. He has a genius for passionate delivery and really impressed me on Covid and on the lickspittle press, but then I saw him on a topic that I consider much more of a reasonable people can disagree matter and he was bringing all of the same dramatic delivery to it and I realized he has a schtick that really works when he’s Churchill delivering blood, sweat, and tears and not so much when he is kvetching about trade balances. But I gave up news “viewing” in the seventies with very brief and rare exceptions for 9/11 and such, it is so much quicker to read the entire newspaper than to set through the teasers and commercials and vamping for a hundred words or two on six or seven stories.
Having said that, the departure of Fox from that populist/corporatist intersection of the conservative niche is a very regrettable victory for the bad guys that consider values to be a four letter word. Anderson Cooper, blaming the four Proud Boys that were stabbed in DC for the violence, never mentioning their Antifa attacker, is a fine case in point.
I think the Trump Network is in our near future, for better and worse. (Many don’t notice, but he’s almost as narcissistic as Obama or the Clintons.)
At the very least, some people who were mainstays at the Decision Desk need to have their contracts non-renewed, if for no other reason than the horrendous decision to call the House races results early, which resulted in Fox missing the mark by either 15 or 17 seats on the overall make-up for Congress in 2021-22 (NY-22 is still up in the air, and whether or not Pelosi will try to seat Hart in Iowa, despite Miller-Meeks being certified as the winner by six votes will determine how it finally ends up, though if I’m Fox I’m not going to celebrate Pelosi overriding the results of IA-2. At least not in public).
And the people who are angry with Fox also know where the network’s profit center is, and it’s not the daytime news hours. It’s the three-hour prime-time block of Carlson, Hannity and Ingram, and they’re boycotting those shows because they know that’s the only way to get the Fox executives’ attention. But as of now, while there’s been some fan service to the network’s core viewers, there’s been no adjustments in the people running the show, and the angry viewers aren’t likely to come back until some of those folks are gone, and even then may not return until they get a look at Fox’s coverage during the 2022 midterms or the 2024 general election cycle. They’re not going to come back for what they see as a possible bait-and-switch, where Fox’s coverage goes back to leaning more towards conservatives, but only during the time periods where that doesn’t matter.
For me, never.
I will never trust the FBI, IRS, Police, DOJ, the CDC the VA or any government entity at any level ever again. They have all demonstrated that they cannot be trusted, that there is no “science” and nothing objective. All that is exists for anyone, anywhere is their agenda, their narrative and their will to power. None of the people running these organizations care about anything other than keeping their power and their jobs. They do not care about the people they are supposed to serve, and they do not care about America.
Can Fox News Turn Things Around?
Can Mark Steyn turn Fox News around?
It may be that God has been trying to get that through to us.
Fox News is dead to me. Even Mrs. Pessimist who always had it on in the background has totally abandoned it. I never liked having the tv on and I will never miss it. Live sports seems to me to be the only rational reason for having a tv.
Yeah, we are hosed. Trump allowed me to dare to hope but in the end he folded also. All I can hope is that it holds together for the time I have remaining on the planet. The only good thing was we decided not to have children. Best decision ever. At least we will not leaving them to this.
It is not about trust. The government is now the enemy of the people. An organized criminal enterprise like the mob. Defund the police. Hell yeah, Defund it all.
The cabal news format itself is dying.
I can get better content with fewer news commercials, on Youtube and Rumble, than I can at Fox News.
If I want to hear left wingers trashing Democrats I can go watch Jimmy Dore.
If I want Sean Hannity cheerleading I can listen to Stephen Turley.
Legal analysis, Viva Frei and Robert Barnes.
Peoples Pundit, for accurate polling. Not bringing on Sean Trende to lie about the incompetent corruption of his industry.
Tim Pool, Mahyar Toosi, Stephen Crowder, The New Culture Forum, Trigenometry, Cold Fusion, Verdict with Ted Cruz, Adamcast, David Rubin.
Thats a better lineup than anything Fox News delivers. The Network age is upon us. Rob Long complained that it took Fox News years losing billions before they became profitable. Most of these small people are doing better quality and detailed shows with cameras in their offices than anything you can find on Network tv.
I still trust individuals, just not bureaucracies, (my brother is a cop in a major city). There are still very good people working in government, and in the media, and even in the courts. They need courage to take their spheres back on our behalf, and with them, the country.
Money is fungible. Viewership and commercial sponsor dollars all benefit the two Murdoch boys and their leftist wives.
People are not in the mood, to be screwed around or betrayed. Not after the NFL/NBA. There are other venues to spend our money.