Fox Corp. Executive Chairman and CEO Lachlan Murdoch has an explanation for why Fox News' audience has been shrinking heading into the midterms: viewers aren't defecting to rival networks, they're just tired of watching television. Speaking on an investor call, Murdoch attributed the recent decline in the network's ratings to what he called “viewer fatigue,” even as he insisted the news division remains financially strong.
Murdoch Says Loyalists Aren't Jumping Ship
“They're not switching to MS NOW or to CNN. They're just, you know, fatigued and watching… slightly less television overall,” Murdoch said, according to CNN. He added that Fox News “is in incredibly good shape” despite the recent dip, framing the slide as a broader viewing-habits shift rather than a competitive loss. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, Murdoch pointed to a similar ratings pattern during the 2006 midterm elections as a historical precedent for the current slump.
The numbers behind Murdoch's comments are striking, even if outlets don't fully agree on the exact figures. Variety reported Fox News averaged 1.1 million total-day viewers in October, down 27% year over year, while Fox News Media's own published figures listed 1,101,000 total-day viewers for the month. The Hollywood Reporter, meanwhile, put the October total-day audience at 1.01 million. In the advertiser-coveted 25-54 demographic, Fox News Media reported 98,000 viewers, which Variety said marked a 32% year-over-year drop while Deadline put the decline at 33%. CNN noted that figure represented Fox's lowest audience level in that demographic since August 2001.
Primetime Numbers Also Diverge Across Outlets
Primetime estimates showed a similar split. Variety reported Fox News averaged about 2 million total primetime viewers in October, down 28% year over year, while The Hollywood Reporter put the October primetime average at 1.68 million. Bloomberg, tracking a slightly different four-week window ending October 25, found Fox News averaging 2 million evening viewers, a 28% decline from the preceding four weeks. During that same stretch, MS NOW averaged 1.16 million viewers, up 15%, and CNN averaged 644,000, up 16%, according to Bloomberg. Bloomberg characterized the pre-election dip as a possible sign that Fox's traditionally conservative audience was less enthused about the November 3 contests, though that framing was offered as one interpretation rather than a settled conclusion.
Fox News' own figures tell a different comparative story. Fox News Media's October totals listed 588,000 viewers for MS NOW and 402,000 for CNN, compared with 1,101,000 for Fox News, according to the company's release distributed via PR Newswire. Variety likewise noted that despite October's decline, Fox News remained the most-watched outlet on cable, well ahead of both CNN and MS NOW. The network's audience slide also wasn't limited to October — Variety reported that Fox News' total-day viewership fell 16% in the third quarter of 2026, with the 25-54 demo down 24% over the same period.
Strong Earnings Despite the Ratings Slump
Whatever is driving the audience softness, it hasn't dented the balance sheet. Fox Corp. posted fiscal first-quarter revenue of $4.57 billion, beating the $4.23 billion average estimate from four analysts surveyed by Zacks, according to an Associated Press report carried by WTOP. Advertising revenue climbed 47%, which Adweek attributed to the final stages of the FIFA World Cup 2026, midterm political ad spending, and continued growth at Tubi. Political advertising across Fox Corp.'s business reached $350 million, which the outlet described as a record for a midterm cycle.
Murdoch also touted growth at Fox One, the company's direct-to-consumer streaming service, telling investors that 97% of its subscribers do not carry a cable subscription, per the same Adweek report. Separately, Fox News Media said the network had generated more than 3.8 billion YouTube video views year to date through October 27, a multiplatform figure the company highlighted alongside its cable ratings data.
The ratings pressure comes against a backdrop of industrywide cord-cutting. U.S. pay-TV providers lost about 2.03 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2026, according to Light Reading, a figure the outlet noted was slightly better than the 2.17 million lost a year earlier. That structural shift toward streaming offers one backdrop against which Murdoch's fatigue explanation is playing out, even as the exact cause of Fox News' specific October slide remains, per Murdoch's own framing, his assessment rather than an independently confirmed finding.
