“Never before had a network been so closely affiliated with a commander-in-chief,”
wrote The Washington Post’s Sarah Ellison and Jeremy Barr, suggesting Fox is currently suffering “something of an identity crisis” under the current leadership of CEO Suzanne Scott and media president Jay Wallace.
“We are lost,” an insider
confided to CNN’s chief media correspondent Brian Stelter.
“January was one of the biggest months of political news in a generation, yet Fox couldn't capitalise,” Mr Stelter himself observed. “Instead of competing by promoting correspondents and putting news coverage front and centre, the network prioritised ever more outrageous, ever more extreme opinion.”
Discussing the slide
with The Daily Beast, one unnamed former on-air Fox personality commented: “Fox has seen ratings dips before and has always come back. But there’s no denying this is disastrous for them.
“They clearly have no plan other than to keep reshuffling the same old tired, uninteresting deck chairs, and the audience knows it. The lack of leadership, a bench, or any exciting, news-making ideas coupled with the blood-letting to Newsmax and OANN have put it in a position never seen before… There is zero doubt they are panicking behind the scenes.”
Another Fox staffer told the same publication: “This channel and everyone associated with it created a monster, preying on low-information Americans. What’s even more dangerous is that they’re angry… The programming is getting pathetically desperate to get viewers back. Seeing the bare minimum of debate on shows. It’s sad. This is a self-inflicted wound.”