Fox News has been the highest rated news network for decades now, consistently beating out CNN and MSNBC combined. It seems this trend may come to an end in 2021. Having long been known as the anti-establishment network, Fox News has lost a substantial amount of viewers due to controversy surrounding their coverage of Donald Trump's campaign and their alleged chicanery during the presidential debate in late September.
And in the first week of the new year, Fox News’s ratings reflect the frustration of their consumers. According to Yahoo! Finance:
AT&T Inc's CNN topped cable networks with roughly 2.8 million viewers per day from Jan. 4 through Sunday, and 4.2 million in primetime, according to the ratings data.
For that same period, Comcast Corp's MSNBC attracted 2.3 million per day and 3.8 million in primetime. Fox News, owned by Rupert Murdoch's Fox Corp, drew about 1.7 million per day and 3.2 million in primetime.
This steep dip in ratings has opened up doors for smaller outlets that some have deemed more trustworthy than ever, considering the bias often found in major news networks today. one such outlet that's risen since Fox's decline has been Newsmax. Reports Yahoo! Finance:
Newsmax, a smaller rival that has been promoted by President Trump, said it saw record ratings in primetime of 443,000 for the week. Its total day ratings averaged 294,000. Newsmax does not provide full-time news coverage on weekends.
Could this be the start of a major societal shift in news consumption?