Fox News staff members thought Newsmax was a joke. But they don’t laugh anymore

The Newsmax TV audience boom

Until election day, Newsmax barely had a boost on Nielsen’s TV audience reports, which showed the channel averaged only 34,000 viewers at any given point in August and September. A slight uptick in October turned into a wave of viewers after November 3. One of the obvious causes was Fox’s projection that President Trump would lose the state of Arizona, dramatically narrowing his path to re-election. Newsmax criticized Fox and gave viewers false hopes about Trump’s chances.

This tactic continued when Fox and all the other major networks called for President-elect Biden to be elected on November 7. Newsmax insisted the race was not over and the major networks were acting irresponsibly, when in fact Newsmax was the irrational actor. A subset of Fox’s audiences flocked to Newsmax for shows that promoted allegations of voter fraud and harangued the rest of the media.

Greg Kelly, the 7 p.m. host on Newsmax, was the biggest beneficiary: his show averaged 80,000 viewers as Election Day approached and topped 800,000 on the first weekday after Biden was projected as president-elect.

Fox sources ridiculed Newsmax as “far right” and “marginal” and chose Kelly for particular criticism. But there has been a noticeable change in the way they talk about Newsmax.

Earlier this year, while I was working on a book on Fox News and Trump, I spoke with some of the same staff, and when I brought up Newsmax and another budding rival, One America News, they got together. usually laughed or made a joke. The channels were spread like fleas on the back of an elephant.

But Fox staff are no longer joking. They pay special attention to the Daily Notes spreadsheets that show Newsmax’s performance alongside Fox News, Fox Business, and other channels.

Overall, CNN made the biggest gains in the post-election period; CNN has been beating Fox News in the key 25 to 54 demographic for almost three weeks. But Fox also lost shares to Newsmax, particularly in the early evening, according to a careful reading of Nielsen data.

Monday night, for example, Kelly had an average of 188,000 viewers aged 25 to 54, while Fox’s “The Story” averaged 288,000 viewers in that demographic at that time.

Prior to the election, Kelly had around 30,000 viewers in the demo, while Fox had over 500,000 in the demo.

Part of Fox’s audience erosion is due to predictable post-election fatigue; Fox also fell into a crisis after Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama in 2012.

If the story is any guide, audiences will gradually “come home”, in the words of one Fox executive, who stressed that the network remains dominant among conservative viewers. On Monday, Fox had 1.4 million viewers at any time of the day and over 2 million during prime time, while Newsmax had 300,000 at any time of the day.

Competition in the right-wing media landscape

No one really knows what to expect in this new competitive landscape. In recent days, Newsmax has emerged from its immediate post-election highs. Kelly attracted an average of 600,000 viewers on Tuesday, up from 1.1 million last Thursday.

And Newsmax is one of Fox’s many challengers. One America News is unrated by Nielsen, which is normally a sign that a channel is very small, but the channel’s owners say their internal measures show big post-election gains. Google searches for Newsmax and One America News both increased after polling day.

Charles Herring, Chairman of OAN, said on Friday that “a massive wave of former Fox News viewers have abandoned Fox and found a home in OAN.” He said some former Fox viewers “believe new pro left-wing voices have crept into the network.”

Other right-wing outlets include two streaming services: BlazeTV, with Glenn Beck and Mark Levin among the hosts, and The First TV, with Bill O’Reilly. One of the guidelines of most of Fox’s rivals: They employ former Fox talent.

Trump, although he was closely aligned with Fox during his tenure, took advantage of the competition and promoted Newsmax on his Twitter feed.

On Tuesday evening, Trump tweeted the results of an unscientific poll, “Should President Trump concede to Biden?” Which aired repeatedly on Newsmax TV.

The results made no sense except to show that Newsmax is still reaching out to Trump fans who don’t want the election to be over.

Some of Fox’s talk shows also engaged in election denial, but they were contradicted by news reports aired at other times of the day. And that’s a source of internal tension, some of Fox’s sources said. Loudly pro-Trump host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday launched a scathing criticism of an election technology company called Dominion Voting Systems. Then she told viewers to tune in later that day, when a Dominion spokesperson would be interviewed by Fox News anchor Eric Shawn. She even read a list of questions she said Shawn should ask.

Inside Fox, staff members cringe at the awkward contrast between Bartiromo’s conspiratorial programming and Shawn’s straightforward interview, which berated conspiracy theories.

However, many Fox viewers prefer conspiracy theories – Bartiromo’s show had over 1.9 million viewers while Shawn’s newscast barely averaged 1 million.

“Our audience has been radicalized,” said a longtime Fox staff member.

Several staff members pointed out programming adjustments, such as the airing of Mark Levin’s right-wing talk show on Saturday and Sunday nights, which are supposed to appeal to the Fox base. Levin’s show only aired on Sundays. Last Saturday, however, Fox aired a six-day-old episode of the show, full of outdated allegations about Trump’s legal challenges.

Staff members said the frequent rerun of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” clips during the day was another notable attempt to appease viewers.