Fox News Boasts 15 Years As Top Dog
The numbers are in and Fox News is the leading top dog when it comes to cable news networks. After winning the month of January, Fox News is now able to boast that it has been the top news network for 15 years straight.
While all of the cable news networks received a huge bump due to the election and President Donald Trump, Fox News’s bump only made them eclipse the competition even more. During the election, it averaged 2.43 million viewers during primetime including 481,000 new viewers from the 25-54 demographic. The election didn’t have Fox News leading the cable news networks, but it actually put it in a whole new division as it began to jump some of the big four networks.
Now with January in the books, it’s not likely that Fox News is going to lose any steam. It averaged 1.8 million viewers to beat out ESPN as the most watched network on cable. As for CNN, whom Fox News passed back in 2002, it only averaged 791,000 viewers to finish eighth out of all cable networks.
It’s a bit surprising as Fox News experienced a bit of a shakeup after the departure of conservative star Megyn Kelly. Kelly, who many expected to be the face of Fox News, left to take on a new role on NBC. The relationship with Fox could have run its course as Kelly confirmed to having been the subject of sexual harassment by then Fox CEO Roger Ailes.
“[Kelly’s move] comes in the aftermath of her explosive accusations that former Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes had sexually harassed her earlier in her career,” NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik said. “And that was on the heels of her colleague Gretchen Carlson alleging the same in a lawsuit. That led to the departure of Ailes and to significant questions about what path Fox News would take forward. Her departure only raise the stakes for Fox.”
While the stakes may have been raised for Fox News, they seemed to have weathered their biggest star leaving with a shuffled around lineup as the network also saw Greta Van Susteren leaving as well. The network added Tucker Carlson to her spot, which hasn’t missed a bit it seemed. The network, and Kelly, were both happy for Carlson.
“In less than two months, Tucker has taken cable news by storm with his spirited interviews and consistently strong performance. Viewers have overwhelmingly responded to the show and we look forward to him being a part of Fox News’ powerful primetime line-up,” 21st Century Fox executive chairman Rupert Murdoch said in a statement when the change was announced.
While changes have been prominent at Fox News, the one thing it can’t be denied is that the network seems to be thriving.
Just like it has been for the last 15 years.
