After years of dominating the conservative media sphere, it would appear that Fox News is finally about to receive some strong competition.
A number of right wing media networks have seen their fortunes change post election as Trump lashed out at Fox for recognizing the reality of his loss.
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Their relationship turned sour after the network called Arizona for President-elect Biden on election night.
Since then Trump has urged his supporters to watch Newsmax and OANN during the day when Fox was running traditional news programs, and so far people are listening. They are leaving FOX for those other networks with content tailored towards the disgruntled Trump supporter. They offer a safe space in which Biden is not yet the president-elect and Trump still has a chance of four more years in office.
Fox News’ favorability fell 13 points among Republicans since the election.
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Last month Greg Kelly’s show on Newsmax overtook “The Story with Martha MacCallum” on Fox in the 25-54 age group for the first-time. Kelly averaged 229,000 viewers in the demo and MacCallum averaged 203,000, according to CNN.
Newsmax may have just beaten Fox in one demographic and during a specific timeslot but, the network–that is even further right than Fox– has seen a boom in viewership since November 4.
Prior to the election Newsmax, was receiving about 25,000 viewers per day. In the week of the election that grew to 182,000. The Newsmax app rose from 4,000 downloads a day before the election to 230,000 in the days after.
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Fox News is noticing the rise of the network they once dismissed as a joke and they are responding to try and keep their viewers in the post Trump era.
Matthew Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters for America, said Fox started to run clips from Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity’s shows during its day time shows and asking guests to respond. It is a tactic Gertz said was designed to win back viewers.
“That struck me as an attempt to win back audience during the ‘news hours’, when there’s somewhat less conservative red-meat than the primetime hours, by giving [viewers] more of that from the familiar faces of Fox’s biggest rightwing stars,” Gertz said, according to The Guardian. “That, I think, was an attempt to respond to the audience that was considering or already sometimes moving over to some of its competitors.”
