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

A highly contentious midterm election is helping to drive audiences for many news brands. But not on Fox News Channel.

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

Fox’s own polls showed Democrats with many advantages heading into election night. The network base may simply be ignoring the information.

The year-over-year decline in ratings is steep enough that Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch had to address it when the company reported its quarterly results Monday morning.

Murdoch curiously attributed this to “viewer fatigue” – although if that is the diagnosis, it is unique to Fox, as other news networks are seeing viewership increases.

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

He argued that the huge news events occurring in 2025 created a difficult “comparison” for Fox News this year. He cited, among other topics, the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the assassination of Charlie Kirk and interest in DOGE.

“This time last year, there was a tremendous news cycle that we’re dealing with,” he said. “But that said, we are seeing some viewer fatigue, as we have seen before.”

Murdoch added: “This cycle is analogous, not entirely, but somewhat analogous to the 2006 midterms, when you have a second-term president who enters his midterm halfway into 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’s today.

Murdoch said Fox fans “don’t go to any other news channel. They don’t switch to MS NOW or CNN. They’re just, you know, tired and watching…a little less TV overall.”

Murdoch’s comments on difficult comparisons with 2025 are undermined by the October notes, released last week. October 2025 was not a particularly busy news month. Yet Fox News’ audience declined 27 percent year over year, while CNN’s audience grew 3 percent and MS NOW’s audience grew 17 percent.

Fox’s contraction and MS NOW’s growth were even more pronounced among viewers aged 25-54. Overall, Fox recorded its lowest audience level among 25-54 year olds since August 2001.

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

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

Emails and texts obtained in Dominion’s defamation lawsuit showed that Fox executives viewed the audience decline as a “brand crisis,” one that required an “American meal of hot dogs and hamburgers to get us through it.”

Over time, the Fox base recovered and Trump reestablished his control over the GOP.

This period could be more complicated because the post-midterm period marks the effective start of the 2028 presidential primary – a period that will not feature Trump as a candidate.