NEW YORK (AP) — Twice just lately, the individuals who run Fox Information had been reminded of their greatest nightmare.
The conservative community Newsmax’s $67 million settlement with Dominion Voting Programs over false claims after the 2020 election recalled Fox’s personal $787.5 million take care of the identical firm greater than two years in the past. New authorized papers filed final month by a second firm suing Fox, Smartmatic, additionally put an episode they wish to overlook again within the information.
Between the staggering cost to bypass a defamation trial and revelations concerning the lengths to which Fox went to keep away from telling its viewers what it did not wish to hear about Donald Trump’s defeat, many puzzled if its actions in November 2020 would injury Fox Information or compel it to alter instructions.
Not a lot, it seems.
Fox Information Channel has defied gravity with its scores, and is extra in style with viewers this summer season than ABC, CBS or NBC. Its prime personalities resolutely assist Trump, who has stuffed his second administration with former Fox stars like Pete Hegseth and Jeanine Pirro. Time after time, the White Home turns to Fox to make information; shortly after assembly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump was sitting with Sean Hannity.
Reached by The Related Press, Fox declined to make anybody accessible to talk for this story.
No regrets, no give up
An ethos many at Fox share with the president — no expressed regrets, no apologies — has additionally proven indicators of spreading, given Newsmax’s swagger following the Aug. 11 settlement announcement.
Fox Information averaged 2.63 million viewers in weekday prime-time for the second quarter of 2025, up 56% from the identical interval in 2023, the Nielsen firm mentioned. Whereas the rise is considerably inflated since Fox took a success within the scores two years in the past following the firing of Tucker Carlson, the advance of cord-cutting signifies that any community gaining viewers now could be uncommon.
MSNBC’s prime-time viewers of 1 million this spring was down 21% in two years, and CNN’s viewership of 538,000 was down 6%, Nielsen mentioned. Forty-five % of individuals watching one of many prime three cable information networks at any given time two years in the past had been tuned to Fox. This 12 months, that viewers share jumped to 62%.
Clearly, Fox’s viewers is extra involved in following a Trump administration than it was for a Joe Biden administration. Simply as clearly, the Dominion case had little considerable influence on viewership.
“Fox’s audience didn’t really look at that verdict and say, ‘Oh, I can’t watch them anymore,’” mentioned Tim Graham, director of media evaluation on the conservative Media Analysis Middle. “I think Fox’s audience looked at that and said, ‘oh, the left is coming after them.’”
Absorbing some hits and transferring on
Financially, the Dominion settlement was stiff sufficient that Newsmax is spreading its funds out over three years. The a lot bigger Fox had a better capacity to soak up its hit. Fox confirmed on the time that it may deduct the settlement from its revenue taxes, and insurance coverage may make the cost decrease. In the meantime, Fox Information is a revenue engine and changing into much more so; Axios reported earlier this 12 months that the corporate anticipated to make half a billion {dollars} on non-TV merchandise like books, podcasts and streaming.
Carlson was the face of the community earlier than he was fired shortly after the settlement was introduced, however Fox has at all times been in a position to generate new stars. Carlson took over from Invoice O’Reilly when he was fired in 2017. Fox began “The Five,” arguably its centerpiece present, when Glenn Beck was proven the door in 2011. Jesse Watters now owns Carlson and O’Reilly’s outdated time slot.
But, it is laborious to understate the concern many at Fox had about dropping viewers instantly following the 2020 election. Trump, and plenty of of his followers, had been offended that the community declared Biden the winner in Arizona earlier than most information shops, a pivotal second within the vote-counting.
Inner messages and deposition interviews revealed in courtroom papers tied to Smartmatic’s lawsuit reveal a lot of that drama. Administration criticized anchor Neil Cavuto for ordering his present to chop away from Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany when she started speaking about election fraud. Information reporters had been disciplined for fact-checking a few of Trump’s claims. Many in Fox’s viewers expressed anger at listening to Trump corrected and needed to listen to conspiracy theories.
Cavuto left Fox after 28 years final December. McEnany is now a co-host of Fox’s noon present, “Outnumbered.” Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, hosts a weekend present at Fox.
Former Fox politics editor Chris Stirewalt, who was fired by Fox shortly after the community’s right name in Arizona, recognized in a Smartmatic deposition a programming technique that Fox excels at. “The best way to capture an audience is to make them afraid, make them fearful of something — to make them hate or resent other people to try to keep them with your telecast and that they’re afraid to change the channel,” he mentioned.
Fox has additionally maintained its dominance by taking part in a type of hardball that Newsmax alleged, in a lawsuit filed this week, violates antitrust legal guidelines. Newsmax mentioned Fox has tried to dam tv distributors from carrying its rival, employed personal detectives to research Newsmax executives and pressured company to not seem on the community.
In response, Fox mentioned, “Newsmax cannot sue their way out of their own competitive failures in the marketplace to chase headlines simply because they can’t attract viewers.”
Newsmax as soon as expressed remorse about protection. Not anymore
Smartmatic mentioned Fox has by no means retracted, or apologized for, applications that falsely instructed the corporate was concerned in altering votes in 2020. Fox, which might not make an govt accessible for this story, mentioned fraud expenses made by a president or his representatives had been newsworthy, and the community is defending itself on free speech grounds.
Newsmax has twice publicly expressed some regrets about its postelection protection. The community settled a lawsuit with Smartmatic in 2024.
In a press release aired on Newsmax in December 2020, the community mentioned that “no evidence has been offered that Dominion or Smartmatic used software or reprogrammed software that manipulated votes in the 2020 election.” The next April, Newsmax apologized for airing false allegations {that a} Dominion worker, Eric Coomer, manipulated voting machines or tallies to the detriment of Trump in 2020. Coomer, in flip, dropped Newsmax from a defamation lawsuit.
In response to courtroom papers within the case, Newsmax govt Gary Kanofsky wrote about conspiracy theorists to a colleague shortly after the election: “Simply giving them a microphone to spew more anti-election rhetoric and advance their claims without being properly equipped to question the legitimacy or factual accuracy of their assertions may be fun, but it’s terrible journalism.”
However Newsmax provided no apology in making the Dominion settlement, introduced Aug. 11. The community’s CEO, Chris Ruddy, attacked the choose, saying he “effectively entered a confiscation of our property because our reporting was not always sympathetic to Joe Biden.”
The community mentioned on the air: “Newsmax believed it was critically important for the American people to hear both sides of the election disputes that arose in 2020. We stand by our coverage as fair, balanced and conducted within professional standards of journalism.”
What has modified? Newsmax has grown, and two months after Trump took workplace once more, it went public. It invitations members of its viewers — dominated by Trump followers — to spend money on the community.
“If you’re paying attention to your audience at Newsmax,” Graham mentioned, “you don’t want to give the impression that you’re knuckling under.”
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David Bauder writes concerning the intersection of media and leisure for the AP. Observe him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.
