Fox News lost a lot of loyal viewers this election cycle

40% of Fox News’ biggest fans watched the network less than half as much in the weeks leading up to the midterms.

Many of Fox News’ most dedicated fans drastically reduced their viewing this midterm election cycle, an audience shift that reflects the right-wing apathy that helped Democrats retake the Senate in a historic blue surge, according to a new analysis by media intelligence firm Samba.

Two-fifths of Fox News regulars, households that watched Fox News more than any other cable news channel in October 2025, watched the network less than half as much in the weeks leading up to Election Day. Another 18 percent of regulars cut their viewing by at least 25 percent, while 42 percent remained relatively loyal to the conservative news network.

The decrease in Fox News consumption among lapsed viewers, identified here as “drop-offs,” was enormous. In October 2025, those households watched an average of 11.4 hours of Fox News per week. This October, their consumption shrank to 2.6 hours, a 77 percent drop.

It’s not as though this audience simply turned off the tube altogether. Their other TV viewing barely changed; they just reduced their time watching Fox News.

Drop-offs didn’t switch to other cable news networks, either; they just stopped watching the news so much. Nearly all (94 percent) Fox News drop-offs cut their overall cable news consumption, across all networks, by half. Four percent decreased their Fox News consumption while watching other networks at the same rate. Only 3 percent shifted their cable news watch time to other networks.

Samba conducted the analysis by identifying Fox News’ most ardent fans: homes that watched at least four hours of Fox News in October 2025 and also watched Fox News more than any other cable news network. Samba then compared those households’ Fox News viewing habits with those in the same four-week period this year.

Right-wing audiences’ exasperation with the current state of political affairs was felt deeply by Republicans, who lost control of Congress and several conservative stronghold states, such as Arizona and Texas.

Fox News felt it, too, in the form of losing regular viewers.

Hero image: “Fox ‘News’” by Clemens v. Vogelsang, via Flickr and Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 2.0. Cropped from the original.