Fox News expects Trump 2.0 to be even better for ratings

After Joe Biden clinched a victory in the 2020 COVID-era presidential election, conservatives split from Fox News – encouraged in part by Donald Trump – while emerging challengers such as Newsmax and One America News were among those who supported MAGA base said he felt Fox was not sufficiently right-leaning in its perspective.

What a difference four years makes. A few days ago, President-elect Trump delighted in Sean Hannity at the annual Fox Patriot Awards on December 5, held this year in Brookville, New York, while accepting the Patriot of the Year award and giving a speech that helped cement the next era of cooperation between the new government and the media empire controlled by Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch.

The Fox News empire has been on a roll since the election, with the network up 7 percent in prime time while its rivals CNN (down 46 percent) and MSNBC (down 52 percent) posted declines as viewers tuned in The excitement surrounding Trump’s surprise turned on tips for Cabinet officials. And during a conference hosted by investor bank UBS on Monday, Fox Corp CFO Steve Tomsic expressed optimism about the company’s cable news offerings. That’s a big change from last year, when the network settled with Dominion Voting Systems for $787 million on the eve of trial over stolen 2020 election claims made on its airwaves.

“We have maintained and increased our share in both prime time and overall daytime, if you look at the three or four weeks that have passed since the election compared to where we were in the month before the election,” Tomsic told UBS presenter John Hodulik. “If I just look at cable news share, if I look at it from a year-to-date perspective, we’re in the mid-50 percent share, if I look at it from a quarter-to-date perspective, we’re somewhere around the 60 percent share . If I look at it just for the month of November, we’re at 62 percent of cable news. If I look at certain weeks in November, we were at the 70 percent mark. From our perspective, Fox News has never been stronger in terms of ratings.”

As CNN undergoes its own transformation toward a digital future under owner Warner Bros. Discovery and MSNBC faces the prospect of a spinoff from Comcast by the end of 2025, Tomsic noted that Fox has already been engaged in restructuring its own company since then Fox was split up in 2019 with the sale of most of its assets to Disney and the refocusing of the business on news and sports.

And the CFO also picked up a narrative about Fox News that was discussed a year ago when Tucker Carlson was ousted and Laura Ingraham was moved to 7 p.m. ET, Jesse Watters took over Carlson’s 8 p.m. ET spot and Greg Gutfeld was moved to 10 p.m became. Namely, whether the Fox brand is bigger than the personalities it created.

“This time last year on Fox News we were talking about a lot of changes to our primetime lineup and asking ourselves, ‘Do personalities trump brand?’ And once again we have shown that the brand surpasses the personalities,” said Tomsic. “Fox News, from a channel perspective, as well as the broader assets that we have around Fox News – be it the business channel, Nation, the digital site – are all running at full speed right now.”

The CFO also said the station has won over more than just its conservative base. “There is no doubt that we are attracting new viewers,” said Tomsic. “People think that Fox News is just the conservatives of the United States. That’s not it. We’re reaching more than our fair share of undecideds, we’re even reaching more than our fair share of Democratic-leaning voters, so I think it’s both because of the new viewers and because some of the competitors are struggling a bit. That’s why I think in many ways we’re comparing ourselves less to our cable news counterparts and looking at Fox News to see how far away we can be from comparing ourselves to broadcast.”

Since the start of the year, Fox Corp’s shares have risen about 55 percent, outperforming much larger rivals that have posted gains (Disney is up 26 percent) as the company benefited from a surge in political advertising this year. On November 4, the company reported its latest quarterly results, which showed an 11 percent increase in advertising revenue to over $1.3 billion.