According to Huffington Post, Fox News Channel is losing lots of its daytime viewers as they are now airing the Jan. 6 committee hearings.
During two of the daytime hearings from the last week of June, the conservative network averaged only 727,000 viewers, compared to the over 3 million who watched on MSNBC and over 2 million who chose to watch on CNN.
According to the report, Nielsen data shows that Fox usually has more daytime viewers than MSNBC and CNN combined.
Fox’s audience sank to under 750,000 during the hearings in the 3:00pm hour, and to 718,000 for the 4:00pm hour. When they cut away from the hearing at 5:00, however, viewership skyrocketed back to nearly 3 million.
It’s a wonder that the network is showing the hearings at all, after spending more than a year promoting former President Donald Trump’s evidence free claims of election fraud in the 2020 election. Fox on-air personalities are starting to change their tune on their blind support of Trump.
At least four Fox News hosts and one popular analyst have cast doubt over Trump’s “big lie” of election fraud. Some have also questioned Trump’s mental fitness and wondered out loud if he’s fit to lead the country should he run for office again in 2024.
Fox’s Sandra Smith argued with Alabama congressman Mo Brooks on air a few weeks ago after Brooks said “The courts are not the final arbiter of who wins federal election contests,” and cited Dinesh D’Souza’s film “2000 Mules,” which has been robustly debunked in every facet.
Smith countered:
“And that [film] has been looked at and fact-checked by multiple outlets, including Reuters, who have [reported] there isn’t any proof that there was widespread voter fraud.”
The next week, Fox News’ Martha MacCallum, who once said the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was “a great victory,” changed her tune in a major way, saying “The lack of evidence is the huge stunning clear moment here where these people are saying, ‘Look I supported you, please give me something to work with,’ and it simply doesn’t materialize.”
“Fox and Friends” host Brian Kilmeade, who once even had a direct line to Trump in the oval office, said just this week that the former President was “unhinged” after losing the election:
“The president was unhinged during that period. I interviewed him at West Point, and he was kind enough to give me a few minutes. I’ve never seen him so angry. That was in between the election and Jan. 6.”
