President Donald Trump directed a sharp critique at Fox News on Tuesday night, a move that marked a notable shift in his public stance toward the network he has historically supported. As results from a historic midterm election came in, demonstrating significant Democratic gains, Trump utilized his Truth Social platform to issue a series of posts assigning blame to the cable news channel for the Republican Party's setbacks.
In one prominent post, the president stated that the network bears responsibility for the losses due to its consistent focus on the Democratic opposition, which he referred to as the Dumocrat opposition. This criticism came as Democrats secured control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The party achieved this milestone by flipping legislative seats in states that have traditionally favored Republican candidates, including Texas, South Carolina, and Kansas.
Trump also highlighted the network's recent performance in audience metrics as evidence of its declining influence. He posted that Fox News ratings had fallen by 27 percent, attributing this drop to the channel spending excessive time covering what he called the Trump Deranged Democrats. He suggested that former viewers had stopped watching the network and that the decline was the network's fault rather than his own.
The network had not immediately responded to requests for comment regarding the president's remarks. However, data released in a press statement the previous week confirmed that Fox News averaged 1.1 million viewers in October. This figure represented a decrease of approximately 27 percent compared to the same month in the previous year.
Lachlan Murdoch, the CEO of Fox Corp., addressed the viewership decline during the company's quarterly earnings call on Monday. He described the situation as a case of viewer fatigue rather than a loss of audience to competitors. Murdoch noted that such a shift is anticipated in the period leading up to a midterm election held under a second-term president.
Murdoch clarified that the viewers who reduced their television consumption were not switching to rival channels. He stated that those viewers are not going to any other news channel, specifically mentioning that they are not switching to MS NOW or CNN. Instead, he argued that the audience is simply tired and watching slightly less television overall.
Despite the year-over-year drop for Fox News, competitors reported growth in specific time slots. Nielsen data cited by Fox indicated that Versant-owned MS NOW and Skydance-owned CNN both saw double-digit increases in primetime viewership in October compared to the same period last year. Nevertheless, both networks still recorded smaller total-day average audiences than Fox News, with MS NOW averaging 588,000 viewers and CNN averaging 402,000.
The financial performance of Fox Corp. remained robust despite the viewership challenges. The company reported an outstanding start to fiscal 2027, with revenue for its first fiscal quarter reaching 4.57 billion dollars. This represented a 22 percent increase over the previous year. The strength in advertising revenue, which rose by 47 percent, was driven by robust political advertising and the broadcast of the FIFA Men's World Cup, which aired partially on Fox platforms between June and July.
Trump has long been a vocal critic of media organizations, particularly broadcasters he perceives as biased against him. While he has frequently targeted NBC and the Disney-owned ABC, his relationship with Fox has generally been warmer. The president appeared on the Fox News program Hannity on Monday evening, just ahead of the election, further illustrating the close ties he has maintained with the network despite his recent criticisms.
