Fox News Is Drawing New Viewers, Including Plenty Of Democrats, Fox Corp. CFO Steve Tomsic Says

While Fox News ratings have declined since Election Day, Fox Corp. CFO Steve Tomsic said the network is drawing a lot of new viewers, including some registered Democrats.

Comparing the election with the Super Bowl, Tomsic said a decline from that peak is to be expected. Even with the downturn, Tomsic said during an appearance at the UBS Media and Communications Conference in New York, the news network has “maintained or grown share” in every daypart.

Tomsic said the company evaluates Fox News on its overall share of cable news viewing. In 2024 to date, he said, its share is in the mid-50s percent range. For the month of November, it was 62% and at some points during that pivotal month got as high as 70%.

Asked by moderator and UBS media analyst John Hodulik if the strong performance was being driven by audience retention or the addition of new viewers, Tomic replied, “There’s no doubt we’re getting new viewers.” While right-wingers are the core, the exec continued, “People think it’s just the conservative audience in the U. S. – it’s not. We capture our fair share of Democrats.”

Tomsic touched on a number of topics during the 35-minute session, including the growth of Tubi, the sports rights landscape and current strategic priorities in the online betting market.

Two major subjects were Comcast‘s pending spinoff of a number of its cable networks into a new stand-alone entity; and contingency plans given the waylaid launch of streaming joint venture Venu Sports. On the latter, pay-TV operator has sued Fox, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery on antitrust grounds and a federal judge granted a request for a preliminary injunction. An appeal of the injunction, which prevented Venu from launching as planned last summer, is expected to reach a resolution in early 2025, Tomsic noted.

Asked what Fox plans to do it Venu doesn’t end up launching, Tomsic said Fox would continue to find ways of “attacking people outside the bundle,” a population of tens of millions. “Our participation in Venu is a signal of how we view our capacity to deal outside the bundle,” he said. “Pricing needs to be consistent and complementary of what we do in our wholesale business … What we don’t want to do is create another ‘me too’ offering. We wt to be something different.”

Tomsic gave YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV credit for gaining traction with their internet-delivered packages, but he said Fox would likely not emulate their pricing or devotion to linear networks. The company’s potential entry “would be the best of linear put together with digital services,” he said. Despite speculating about non-Venu ways to enter subscription streaming (a market Fox has famously avoided), Tomsic affirmed the company’s belief in “the power of the bundle. It’s the way consumers want to consume” programming.

Comcast’s cable network spinoff, meanwhile, “doesn’t change much for us,” Tomsic said. As Fox has been constituted since the $71.3 billion deal with Disney that saw two-thirds of 21st Century Fox, including a lot of cable, leave the fold, Tomsic said the company has specialized in news and sports on cable while leaning into broadcast TV.

Asked about sports rights, Tomsic said the company is currently devoting about 40% of its expenses to that line item. As far as its sports portfolio, he said, “We feel pretty complete, but we look at everything.”