Separately, in a decision that could affect more viewers, the Fox broadcast network will not direct its affiliates, which reach many millions more homes than Fox News, to show the hearing. They “will be offered” coverage of the hearing, Fox News Media said, but not mandated to take it, as is often the case with major events like a presidential address.
Given the highly polarized view that Americans have taken of the select committee’s work, it is unclear that Fox News’s usual viewers would tune in at all. They have punished the network in the past for coverage that did not toe the line. Its ratings fell sharply after Fox News became the first network in 2020 to call Arizona for President Biden, effectively declaring him the winner of the election, and then declined to promote the wildest claims of voter fraud. Newsmax, a conservative cable news channel that was more willing to broadcast questionable stories about fraud at the polls, saw its ratings surge temporarily.
Only after Mr. Biden was inaugurated, and Fox News anchors like Mr. Carlson began to cast events like Jan. 6 as a partisan smoke screen exploited by Democrats, did the network’s ratings rebound.
“The base isn’t clamoring to tune in, because they agree that Jan. 6 hearings are just a political stage show and that Jan. 6 has been blown out of proportion,” Ms. Hemmer of Columbia said.
During the Trump presidency and his two campaigns, Fox News was often caught between its audience and its notion of itself as an independent, conservative voice in media.
Egged on by Mr. Trump, conservatives pounced when they thought a Fox host like Megyn Kelly was unfairly critical of him. To this day, he complains that Fox treats him poorly because it doesn’t air his political rallies live and in full. He has gloated about the network’s ratings crash after the 2020 election, noting of Fox’s audience, “They don’t want to hear negativity toward me.”
With the decision to limit coverage of the Jan. 6 hearing this week, Fox News is sending a clear signal that it is siding with this audience.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/business/media/fox-jan-6-hearings.html
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