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Versant CEO: MS NOW Not Suffering From ‘News Fatigue’ Like Fox News
Versant Media CEO Mark Lazarus said MS NOW is not seeing the “viewer fatigue” that Fox News has blamed for falling ratings. He said MS NOW’s audience is active and growing, with some viewers switching from other networks, and expects interest to remain strong around US Election Day coverage.
Fox News still drew more than twice MS NOW’s average primetime audience in the third quarter: 2.06 million viewers against 930,000. However, Fox’s primetime audience fell 17% overall and nearly 25% among viewers aged 25 to 54, while MS NOW’s rose 16% and 27.3%, respectively. Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said some viewers were watching less television amid tough headlines, rather than moving to rival news channels.
In short
- MS NOW says its audience is growing, without signs of news fatigue.
- Fox News remains larger but lost primetime viewers in the third quarter.
- MS NOW’s audience grew, especially among viewers aged 25 to 54.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
MS NOW’s rising audience, including among viewers aged 25 to 54, supports Lazarus’s view that the network is attracting viewers even as Fox News declines. Some viewers appear to be switching networks, suggesting that Fox’s losses do not necessarily reflect general fatigue with news. Strong interest in election coverage could also sustain MS NOW’s growth.
The case against
Fox News’s much larger primetime audience and Murdoch’s account offer a reasonable basis for caution: a decline in viewing may reflect people watching less television during a period of difficult headlines, rather than moving to MS NOW or other rivals. One quarter of contrasting ratings does not establish that news fatigue is absent at MS NOW or that its growth will continue beyond election coverage.
Explained simply
MS NOW is a US cable news channel that was previously known as MSNBC. It is part of Versant Media, whose chief executive is Mark Lazarus. Fox News is a separate US cable news network led by Lachlan Murdoch.
Cable news channels compete for viewers, and ratings measure how many people watch. Primetime is the evening schedule, when networks typically attract large audiences; the 25-to-54 age group is a common measure for advertisers. Changes in ratings can affect how networks understand their audiences and present their performance.
The debate over “news fatigue” is about whether people are tuning out of television news because of difficult or relentless headlines. Viewers may also move between channels or use other ways to follow the news, so audience figures can reflect several different habits.
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