Technology

When Donald Trump lost the presidency last November, Fox News lost too. But unlike Trump, Fox was never in denial about its loss. The network’s executives and multi-million-dollar stars stared the ratings in the face every day and saw that their pro-Trump audience was reacting to the prospect of President Biden by switching channels or turning off the TV.

“We’re bleeding eyeballs,” a Fox producer remarked in December. “And we’re scared.”

To fix the problem, Fox ran even further to the right. And here’s the thing: It worked. It was toxic for the American political system, but it was profitable for Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch.

“Fox is a really different place than it was pre-election,” a commentator said to me, with regret, after Biden took office.

The post-election changes at Fox happened one day at a time, one show at a time, but when viewed in totality, they are unmistakable and stark. Practically every change was about having less news on the air and more opinions-about-the-news. It was like serving dessert without dinner, when the dessert consisted of screaming about how awful the dinner was, and warning that the meal might be a socialist plot, and hey, while we’re at it, why are chefs so corrupt?

And because Fox News is the primary trusted source of information for millions of Americans, including Republican elected officials and party activists, the changes affect everyone.

Trump’s loss was a pivot point.

‘We denied the pandemic and now we’re denying the election outcome.’

Fox’s ratings declined in the immediate aftermath of Mitt Romney’s loss in 2012, so the slump after the networks projected Biden as president-elect was no surprise. But the precipitousness was a shock. Fox’s afternoon and evening hours fell off by 20, 25, 30 percent, even though the news cycle was nothing short of epic. For people at Fox who were used to winning for years, this was disorienting, and for some downright terrifying.

“Our audience hates this,” one executive said to me in a moment of candor. “This” was Biden as president-elect and Kamala Harris as VP-elect. “They’re pissed,” said a second source. “Seething,” said another.

I granted anonymity to these sources because they weren’t allowed to speak with outside reporters on the record, and because I wanted them to freely offer blunt assessments of the situation.

Fox’s problem was that the audience suddenly had somewhere else to go. On the up-and- coming channel Newsmax, Biden wasn’t called president-elect right away. In other words, Trump wasn’t a loser yet. Newsmax’s 7 p.m. host Greg Kelly kept saying that he believed Trump could stay in office for four more years. “IT ISN’T OVER YET,” Newsmax’s banners proclaimed. While Fox only dabbled in election denialism at first, Newsmax went all-in.