Fox News ratings drop is due to ‘viewer fatigue,’ Murdoch says on eve of midterms

By Brian Stelter, CNN

(CNN) — A highly contentious midterm election is contributing to higher ratings for many news brands. But not at the Fox News Channel.

Fox News remains the most-watched cable channel overall, but its ratings have fallen sharply in recent weeks, prompting speculation that Fox’s Republican-heavy audience is feeling deflated by the midterms.

Fox’s own polls have shown Democrats with numerous advantages heading into election night. The network’s base may just be tuning out the news.

The year-over-year ratings decline is steep enough that Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch had to address it when the company released quarterly earnings on Monday morning.

Murdoch curiously chalked it up to “viewer fatigue” — though if that’s the diagnosis, it’s unique to Fox, since other news networks are seeing viewership growth.

On a conference call with investors and analysts, Murdoch said Fox News as a business “is in incredibly good shape” despite the recent dip.

He argued that huge news events in 2025 created a tough “comp,” or comparison, for Fox News this year. He cited President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Charlie Kirk’s assassination and interest in DOGE, among other topics.

“It was a tremendous news cycle this time last year, which we’re comping against,” he said. “But having said that, we are seeing some viewer fatigue, which we’ve seen before.”

Murdoch added: “This cycle is analogous, not entirely, but somewhat analogous to the 2006 midterms, when you have a second-term president going into their midterms halfway after the second term, and you just see this viewer fatigue.”

In 2006, it was President George W. Bush, who had an approval rating almost as low as Trump has now.

Murdoch said Fox fans “are not going to any other news channel. They’re not switching to MS NOW or to CNN. They’re just, you know, fatigued and watching… slightly less television overall.”

Murdoch’s comments about tough comparisons to 2025 are undermined by October ratings, which came out last week. October 2025 was not an exceptionally busy news month. Yet Fox News viewership was down 27 percent year over year while CNN viewership was up 3 percent and MS NOW viewership was up 17 percent.

Fox’s contraction and MS NOW’s growth were even more pronounced among 25- to 54-year-old viewers. Overall, Fox scored its lowest audience level in the 25-54 demographic since August 2001.

Murdoch told investors that “we’ve seen this playbook” and “know how to move through it.”

Fox is used to seeing viewer mood swings show up in the ratings. In 2020, when Trump allies attacked Fox for accurately reporting that he had lost to Joe Biden, Fox’s ratings dropped precipitously. The ratings pressure was on the minds of some Fox hosts and producers who subsequently platformed Trump’s election lies, leading to multiple defamation lawsuits.

Emails and texts obtained through Dominion’s defamation lawsuit showed that Fox executives saw the ratings drop as a “brand crisis,” one that necessitated an “All American cookout of hot dogs and hamburgers to get us through.”

Over time, the Fox base did tune back in, and Trump reestablished his control over the GOP.

This time might be more complicated because the post-midterm period is the effective start of the 2028 presidential primary — one that won’t feature Trump as a candidate.

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