'He's going to spend a lot of time slamming Fox'
President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
In Thursday’s newsletter, I talked a little about the future of cable news networks, specifically what they will look like when Donald Trump is no longer president. (If you missed it, you can click here.) Fox News might be the network most impacted, considering its viewers tend to be conservatives or right-leaning, and many are Trump supporters.
Just based on what we’ve seen from Trump over the years, we assume he won’t be able to stay out of the news once he leaves office, and will turn to a cable network to be his megaphone.
But will that network be Fox News? Trump has a hot-and-cold relationship with the network. He praises many of its primetime hosts who have shown to be strong Trump advocates and has a history of turning to Fox News and Fox Business when he needs a friendly interviewer or sympathetic ear. But he often criticizes the rest of the network, particularly when they report news he doesn’t like.
In fact, just Thursday, Trump tweeted, “.@FoxNews daytime ratings have completely collapsed. Weekend daytime even WORSE. Very sad to watch this happen, but they forgot what made them successful, what got them there. They forgot the Golden Goose. The biggest difference between the 2016 Election, and 2020, was @FoxNews!”
What set him off? Presumably that the daytime parts of Fox News that stick to facts are acknowledging what everybody except Trump and his inner circle won’t: that Joe Biden won the election and will be the next president.
So where will Trump turn when he leaves office?
There’s always the chance that Trump will throw his weight behind a place such as OAN. And CNN’s Brian Stelter has another possibility. Keep an eye on Newsmax TV. Trump has been giving Newsmax some attention on Twitter, and Stelter notes that Newsmax’s ratings have gone up — from averaging a puny 25,000 viewers over the summer to 437,000 earlier this week. A couple of their shows have attracted as many as 800,000 viewers. These are not huge TV numbers. But it’s a sign that its popularity is growing. The reason seems to be that much of Newsmax is all in when it comes to the conspiracy theories that the election was rigged.
Last Sunday, Stelter interviewed Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy, who said, “(Trump is) very disappointed in Fox News.”
In an insightful piece about Newsmax, The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr wrote, “The network is upping its attacks on Fox lately, smelling blood in the water after many conservatives, including the president, criticized Fox News for being the first news outlet to call Arizona for Biden, leading to something of a rift in the cozy, long-standing relationship.”
Now, to be clear, Barr smartly noted on Twitter that there is still not overwhelming evidence that Trump has completely turned on Fox News. Barr also tweeted, “People have been watching Fox News religiously for decades. They’re unlikely to just stop watching because Trump is retweeting four-day-old tweets attacking it.”
In addition, Stelter wrote, “My two cents: Fox News still has a near-monopoly position. Its ratings are not noticeably suffering as a result of Newsmax's ratings spike. While Newsmax averaged 437,000 viewers on Tuesday, Fox averaged 1.86 million. But there has clearly been a disruption in the pro-Trump TV universe. Newsmax is capitalizing. And Trump is funneling his fans to the channel. Will the ratings bump last?”
Axios’ Mike Allen reported Thursday that a source told him, “(Trump) plans to wreck Fox News. No doubt about it.”
Allen is reporting that Trump has told friends he wants his own digital media company. Allen wrote, “There's been lots of speculation about Trump starting a cable channel. But getting carried on cable systems would be expensive and time-consuming. Instead, Trump is considering a digital media channel that would stream online, which would be cheaper and quicker to start. Trump's digital offering would likely charge a monthly fee to MAGA fans. Many are Fox News viewers, and he'd aim to replace the network — and the $5.99-a-month Fox Nation streaming service, which has an 85% conversion rate from free trials to paid subscribers — as their top destination.”
Allen’s source told him that if Trump starts holding rallies again, “He's going to spend a lot of time slamming Fox.”
We all knew that this presidential election was going to impact the future of the country. And that’s the most crucial thing. But now we’re finding out that it could impact the future of cable news as well.
A matter of trust?
New York Times’ reporter Adam Satariano wrote a piece that just goes to show you why we shouldn’t be at all surprised that conspiracy theories that Trump won the election have gained momentum among many Republicans.
Satariano notes that research from Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism shows a “long and steady decline in trust” that more conservative Americans have in the media. According to those studies, trust in the media among conservatives has fallen from 25% in 2015 to 13% in 2020.
Satariano writes, “The declining trust in news has been years in the making and coincides with rising use of social media as a main source of information.”
That, along with the political divide in this country, has created an environment where we can’t even agree on facts. Last week, a Politico poll found that 70% of Republicans don’t think the election was free and fair.
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute, told Satariano, ““People on the right have lost faith in the news media. It has created an environment where a significant part of the American public feels alienated from established news media, but they still want information and seek it out.”
|
Kayleigh McEnany. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
