As the rift between President Donald Trump’s most diehard supporters and Fox News continues to widen, upstart Newsmax TV has scored a major ratings win over the reigning king of cable news.
The numbers: For the first time ever, Newsmax’s “Greg Kelly Reports” narrowly beat out Fox’s “The Story with Martha MacCallum” on Monday night in the crucial 25- to 54-year-old demographic, CNN reported.
- Kelly’s 229,000 average viewers in the demo were just enough to top MacCallum’s 203,000.
- “We’re here to stay,” Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy said on Tuesday. “The ratings are showing that.”
- Fox News’ overall ratings numbers are four times higher at any given point in time, according to Nielsen: On Monday, Fox averaged 1.36 million viewers to Newsmax’s 316,000.
Still, Newsmax’s successes of late would likely have been unthinkable until recently.
POTUS v. Fox: Fox News’ coverage of the 2020 election has outraged Trump and his allies, who feel the network hasn’t done enough to push back against mainstream liberal narratives, particularly with regard to alleged widespread voter fraud.
- The president has responded by urging his supporters to turn off Fox and tune into comparatively more friendly alternatives like One America News Network and Newsmax.
- Trump is also reportedly thinking of starting his own digital media company to rival Fox News.
- “.@FoxNews daytime is not watchable. In a class with CNN & MSDNC,” Trump tweeted on Sunday. “Check out @OANN, @newsmax and others that are picking up the slack. Even a boring football game, kneeling and all, is better!”
It’s working: Trump’s attacks on the network he once praised as a valuable alternative to the “fake news media” appear to be having their intended effect.
- A Morning Consult survey released last month found that the number of Republicans who view Fox favorably fell from 67% prior to Nov. 3, to 54% just one week after Election Day.
