(RepublicanNews.org) – Brett Baier of Fox News appeared to confirm former President Donald Trump’s assertion during a June 19th interview that the network was losing viewership and suffering through a rating slump. After Baier stated that Fox has “more independent” viewers than “any other” source on television, Trump retorted that the network has “a lot less” than it used to.
Baier did not debate the former President on this fact, replying to him only with a “they do watch” and ending the back and forth by stating that independent voters tend to bridge the difference in an election.
Two days prior to Trump’s exchange with the host, Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social with a pair of statements and implied that Fox has abandoned their conservative audience. In the first post, Trump said it was almost “too late” for Fox and that the network needed to “get smart fast.” In the second, he said Fox’s ratings are “in freefall” and that only he can save them.
Trump’s posts were referencing recent primetime rating statistics. They show MSNBC leading the timeslot last week for the first time in well over 2 years. Before MSNBC’s win, Fox had dominated primetime for 120 weeks straight. In their first winning week, MSNBC had an average audience count of 1.489 million viewers.
Tucker Carlson’s ousting from Fox in April following the network’s settlement with Dominion Voting Systems led to a 50% decline in viewership for his replacement. While millions of Carlson fans have migrated with him to his new show on Twitter, many of them have also migrated to other platforms on the right. Newsmax ratings have more than doubled since Carlson was terminated without notice.
In the month following Carlson’s firing, Newsmax increased its primetime ratings by 135 percent. Fox’s primetime ratings for that month show a 39 percent decrease, with viewership falling to 1.6 million from a 2.6 million average.
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