On Monday, hours earlier than the polls opened for the US presidential election, Fox chief govt Lachlan Murdoch sounded undeniably cheerful on a name with Wall Avenue analysts.

Declaring it a “file” quarter for Fox’s political income, Murdoch spoke at size about how profitable this election had been for his household’s enterprise. “I apologise to anybody who was having fun with their soccer over the weekend and was bombarded with political adverts,” he joked from its New York headquarters, the place he’ll watch the election outcomes roll in. 

Murdoch has cause to be upbeat. 

Fox Information has been besieged by threats in recent times: calls from offended supporters of Donald Trump to desert a community they thought had develop into insufficiently loyal, billion-dollar lawsuits over its position in broadcasting election disinformation, the lack of its greatest star, Tucker Carlson, and the accelerating collapse of cable tv. Defying the chances, Fox Information has emerged sturdy. 

“Throughout this election cycle, People have turned to Fox Information greater than another service,” Murdoch stated on Monday, operating by numbers as an instance the enduring dominance of the cable channel based by his father in 1996. 

In its most up-to-date quarter, Fox Information was the preferred US cable channel and the second-most watched community on all of US tv — trailing solely NBC, which aired the Paris Olympic Video games. 

For the three months to the tip of September, its mum or dad firm’s earnings doubled. Shares in Fox have jumped almost 50 per cent this 12 months, valuing the group at greater than $18bn.

Fox’s success contrasts with a broader information media panorama that’s wobbling.

Whereas 2016’s “Trump bump” delivered file audiences throughout the information business, the influence from 2024’s race has been extra combined. A choose group — together with Fox and The New York Occasions — have continued to prosper. Nonetheless, different legacy media corporations face a grimmer image. 

MSNBC, the liberal-leaning cable channel that positioned itself because the community of resistance towards Trump, was final week described by proprietor Comcast as among the many “extra mature companies” it’d spin off right into a separate firm.

The Washington Put up’s viewers has shrunk from its 2016 highs. In current weeks, the Put up reportedly bled greater than 250,000 subscribers, or about 10 per cent of its buyer base, after proprietor Jeff Bezos axed the paper’s deliberate endorsement of Kamala Harris. The Los Angeles Occasions equally suffered a reader backlash when its billionaire proprietor, Patrick Quickly-Shiong, did the identical. 

Marc Benioff, the billionaire founding father of Salesforce, is in the meantime reportedly in talks to promote Time journal for a $40mn loss to a Greek media group run by a transport inheritor. 

Whereas Harris’s dramatic elevation to be the Democratic candidate helped ignite curiosity on this election, People are fatigued by the information, in keeping with current research. Audiences have splintered throughout a dizzying array of platforms, with legacy media shops competing with TikTok and podcasters for his or her consideration.

Trump, in the meantime, has continued to depict the media as an enemy. At a rally on Sunday, he stated he wouldn’t thoughts if an tried murderer needed to “shoot by” the press pen to achieve him.

“The widespread information tradition is fragmenting and can proceed to fragment. Which implies nobody entity, individual, organisation [or] voice is ever going to dominate once more,” stated Andrew Heyward, former president of CBS Information. “If Walter Cronkite was probably the most trusted man in America, there may be not going to be one other trusted man or lady in media.”

That is anticipated to be the most costly US election in historical past, with the Harris and Trump campaigns collectively spending about $2bn on adverts, in keeping with the Monetary Occasions’ advert tracker. A lot of that cash flows to native, free-to-watch TV stations — which Murdoch described on Monday as “our election heroes” when it comes to income. 

However within the pay-television world, the place Fox Information operates, the long-term transition away from cable reached a tipping level this 12 months. In August, Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount, two of America’s largest TV corporations, made a stark evaluation: their cable channels had been value $15bn lower than that they had thought. Cable channels have develop into “anchors across the necks” of media corporations, LightShed analyst Wealthy Greenfield stated.

“You may’t over-emphasise how radical the transformation has been in viewers habits. There’s been exponential change simply previously eight years,” stated Jonathan Klein, who was president of CNN from 2004 to 2010. 

Fox’s resilience comes even after the broadcaster infuriated elements of its core, Republican-voting viewers in 2020, when it was the primary information organisation to name Arizona in favour of Trump’s rival, Joe Biden.

The backlash frightened prime Fox executives, as revealed in filings final 12 months as a part of a defamation lawsuit introduced towards Fox by voting know-how firm Dominion. A day after the vote, Fox Information chief govt Suzanne Scott texted Murdoch: “the AZ [call] was damaging however we are going to spotlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them”, in keeping with the filings. Fox paid almost $800mn to settle the Dominion lawsuit. 

Fox stood by the Arizona name, and Arnon Mishkin, who leads its election calls, instructed the Monetary Occasions that he didn’t really feel the controversy had put him underneath further stress this time round.

This uncommon US election cycle has featured just one debate between Harris and Trump, which aired on Disney’s ABC. However Fox Information secured interviews with each candidates and their operating mates, Tim Walz and JD Vance.

Fox’s interview with Harris, which Murdoch touted on Monday, drew 7.8mn viewers — larger than her interviews on different networks, however beneath the 8.5mn who tuned into Biden’s interview on ABC in July. 

Heyward stated Fox’s “clearly outlined id” had helped it buck broader tendencies in its business. “Fox has a really well-defined worth proposition and an older viewers. So it’s nicely positioned to proceed to succeed.” 

MoffettNathanson analysts wrote on Monday: “Whereas the majority of Fox nonetheless sits throughout the fading world of linear [TV], its slender deal with sports activities and information locations it inside islands of stability and even progress.”

Fox Information is about to make $3.1bn in working income this 12 months, up from $2.5bn in 2016 however beneath the file $3.3bn it earned in 2022, in keeping with S&P International Market Intelligence estimates.

Even for Fox, although, this 12 months’s presidential race has not matched the viewers highs of 2020, when the information cycle was hyper-charged by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Fox averaged 2.8mn viewers through the primetime 8pm-11pm hours in October, in contrast with 4.9mn in the identical month in 2020 and three.1mn in 2016.

MSNBC attracted on common 1.4mn viewers in primetime this October, down from 2.7mn in 2020, whereas CNN drew 830,000, down sharply from 2.4mn in 2020. 

The business now faces the query of whether or not its election increase will finish as soon as the information cycle eases once more. “I feel you’re going to see issues settle again to actuality fairly quick,” Heyward stated. 

Murdoch on Monday sounded undeterred. 

“What’s going to occur tomorrow? I don’t know,” he stated. Nonetheless, he added: “I don’t suppose it might influence us . . . within the markets we’re in, we’re seeing great quantity of progress and well being.”