Fox News Ratings Fall as Lachlan Murdoch Cites Viewer Fatigue

Fox News entered the closing stretch of the US midterm election cycle with a shrinking audience. Viewership declined during the third quarter and continued falling into October, according to Variety Movies.

The weakness stands out because other news brands are attracting more viewers. The Financial Times reported that CNN and MS NOW were expanding their audiences as Fox News suffered a sharp ratings drop.

On November 2, Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch addressed the decline, attributing it to "viewer fatigue," Bloomberg reported. His explanation placed news exhaustion at the centre of the company's response ahead of the midterms.

Murdoch described the pattern as something Fox had experienced before. "We are seeing some viewer fatigue, which we've seen before," he said, according to Deadline Hollywood, which reported that viewership was down from a year earlier.

He also told Wall Street he was confident the viewers would return. "We have seen this playbook," The Hollywood Reporter quoted him as saying.

There is a competing explanation for the decline. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that some media observers linked it to President Donald Trump's slipping approval ratings, while Murdoch argued that viewer fatigue offered a simpler explanation.

Fox News remains the most watched cable channel overall despite its sharply lower ratings, according to cnn.com. Its audience losses therefore mark a weakening of its position, not the loss of its overall cable lead.

Murdoch is signalling persistence rather than a change of direction. Variety Movies reported that he vowed to press forward, framing the problem as viewers being tired of news rather than no longer liking Fox.

The next test is whether viewers return as Murdoch expects. With the midterm cycle nearing its end, the open question is whether Fox's decline proves temporary while competitors' audiences grow, as reported by the Financial Times.