On a midterm election night that was a huge disappointment for Republicans, with Democrats taking control of the US House and Senate, the country’s most prominent conservative television network seemingly felt the brunt of viewer disillusionment with Donald Trump and his party, according to final audience numbers released on Thursday. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
The Fox News Channel, which often leads among all news networks in viewership on election nights, fell behind two top broadcasters on Tuesday. According to ratings dating from the Nielsen firm, the network averaged 4.3 million total viewers between 8 and 11pm, behind broadcast networks NBC (6.7 million viewers) and ABC (5.2 million viewers), though it edged out fellow cable networks CNN (4.1 million viewers) and MS Now (3.7 million viewers). Fox News handedly defeat CBS News, which attracted just 2.8 million viewers. CNN performed better in the 25-to-54 age demographic prized by advertisers, besting Fox News, MS Now and CBS.
Originally, preliminary viewership numbers released Wednesday put Fox News behind both CNN and MS Now in total viewership in primetime.
Overall, the big six television networks averaged nearly 27 million total viewers during prime-time election coverage, up from 22.215 million total viewers in 2022. During those 2022 elections, Fox News averaged 7.422 million viewers, meaning its viewership slipped about 41% on Tuesday.
With Trump reaching historic levels of unpopularity, Fox News has seen some viewers tune out in recent weeks. Last month, the network’s viewership was down 27% compared with the same month last year in total day viewers, though it still handily defeated CNN and MS Now. Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of parent company Fox Corp, acknowledged “viewer fatigue” in an earnings call on Monday.
Trump, who criticized Fox throughout election night and blamed the network for his party’s losses, poked fun at the network’s October figures in a Truth Social post, chalking up the decline to the channel’s industry-standard practice of booking Democratic candidates for interviews.
“FoxNews Ratings are way down (27%!) because they’re spending too much time covering the Trump Deranged Dumocrats!” he wrote on Tuesday evening. “All of those people who used to watch Fox, and no longer do, get it. It’s them, not me – My numbers are better than they have ever been.”
This story was updated on Thursday afternoon to reflect final viewership figures released by Nielsen.