The decline of Fox News has been sharp and precipitous. The network, which enjoyed a long run as the top cable news network for more than a decade, is now routinely #3 in the nightly ratings, both “in demo” and with the general audience.
Before the November 3rd election, Fox News was attracting 4.5-6 million viewers–on occasion, more–across its three-hour prime time lineup of hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Now, 2 1⁄2 months later, it’s getting its collective butt kicked nightly by both CNN and MSNBC, with Fox News’s Big 3 barely able to hit 3 million viewers, and only one, Carlson, exceeding that, according to AdWeek.
The decline started immediately after election was called for Joe Biden on November 6th, but to be accurate, all three networks saw a decline as people turned to different networks due to campaign fatigue.
Since then, however, MSNBC and CNN have not just rebounded, but accelerated. MSNBC ratings are up 20% meeting or exceeding pre-election ratings. CNN’s ratings in primetime have shot up 50%. On most nights, Anderson Cooper is challenging Rachel Maddow for nightly viewership honors. Tucker Carlson, the one time king of prime time cable news, is wallowing in fifth or six place behind Chris Cuomo, Don Lemon and Lawrence O’Donnell.
Brian William’s MSNBC show, in the 11 p.m. ET time slot, is routinely in a statistical tie with Sean Hannity’s show, which airs in the heart of primetime two hours earlier.
The drop-off is trackable to one date: November 19, 2020. That’s the date that Tucker Carlson made a fatal mistake. He challenged claims of the Kraken, Sidney Powell, the bombastic, conspiracy-laden attorney fighting the election results that showed Donald Trump lost. Carlson said Powell declined to provide him with any substantive evidence of fraud prior to an appearance on his show.
Almost accidentally, Carlson brought things into the Bubbles of Fox News viewers that had never dared enter: uncertainty, doubt, skepticism… reality.
The impact was immediate. The following day, one million fewer people tuned into Carlson’s 8 p.m. show. Hannity and Ingraham saw similar, if not as dramatic, drops. And their audiences continued to erode.
The Fox News poster boy, the soon-to-be-Florida-Man Donald Trump started tweeting praise of upstart rivals One America News and NewsMax, drawing viewers to the little known networks. Some viewers slid over to CNN and MSNBC for a view of reality they hadn’t dared taken before. Some just dropped out of the cable news ecosystem entirely.
Fox News has not recovered, and given their current trajectory, they’re unlikely to in their current iteration. The hosts who had a stranglehold on their viewers’ trust are now insufficiently reliable. They’re not part of the “Main Stream Media” (yet), but they’re part of the Trump undoing, which cannot be tolerated.
The problem Fox News faces, however, is that they no longer have a corner on conspiracy; OAN and NewsMax are out-crazying them. They still try to promote Trump, but the historically-unpopular Florida Man will either fade off into the sunset and/or hitch a ride on a network that showed him undying loyalty.
Undoubtedly, Hannity and Ingraham will congeal around the “evil Democrats” narrative until the midterms, but the cleave in the Republican Party no longer constricts room to GOP talking points to one network. The conspiracy-laden QAnon stragglers will never go back to Fox News. The traditional GOP voters who couldn’t stomach Trump won’t either. And Fox News will never be able to rebrand itself as an authoritative outlet for the conservative viewpoint.
Fox News will be destined for life in third place for the foreseeable future.