Fox posts $4.57bn quarter despite Fox News ratings decline

By Daniel Okafor

Fox reported $4.57 billion in revenue for its first quarter ending September 30, 2026. Revenue rose 22% from a year earlier. Advertising revenue rose 47%. Net income reached $957 million, against $609 million 12 months earlier. That represented a $348 million increase, or 57%.

Fox announced the results on November 2, 2026, and called them record performance. Chief executive Lachlan Murdoch said the FIFA World Cup and Tubi helped lift advertising revenue. Political spending provided an additional boost during the midterm period. The announcement did not assign separate amounts to the World Cup or Tubi.

Is Fox News losing viewers to competitors?

CEO Lachlan Murdoch addressed Fox News' recent ratings decline at the announcement. He described viewer fatigue after an unusually heavy news cycle, rather than defections to rival channels.

“What we are seeing is some viewer fatigue, where our viewers have gone through an incredible news cycle last year with the inauguration, the Charlie Kirk tragedy, DOGE, flooding, it was an incredible news cycle last year,” Murdoch said.

He compared the environment with the 2006 midterms, when President George W. Bush was midway through his second term. The 2006 reference supplies a historical parallel for the midterm cycle. Murdoch offered no audience data from either period.

Murdoch rejected the idea that viewers were switching to another news channel. He said: “Those viewers are not switching to another news channel, they are just fatigued and watching slightly less television overall. We have seen this playbook, and we know how to move through it.”

That claim carries a specific commercial consequence. If audiences watch less television across the market, Fox News can retain its audience share while producing fewer total audience minutes. That reduces news inventory available for advertising. The results include no audience-minutes or inventory figures. His explanation therefore remains an executive interpretation, not a quantified finding.

Corporate results nevertheless benefited from political attention. Murdoch said national competition made Fox a major beneficiary of midterm advertising. He contrasted that benefit with the decline in Fox News ratings.

How did earnings rise despite the ratings decline?

The 47% advertising increase exceeded Fox's 22% group revenue growth by 25 percentage points, making advertising the clearest measured driver of the quarterly improvement even though the figures did not disclose each business line's contribution.

The corporate figures do not contradict Fox News' ratings decline. They separate advertising sales from audience performance at the news channel. The results include no ratings percentage, audience count or like-for-like comparison. The size of the decline therefore cannot be quantified from these figures.

Fox's record corporate result and weaker Fox News ratings describe two different markets: advertiser demand and viewer attention. World Cup inventory and midterm spending helped the former, while some viewers reduced their overall television consumption.

How much advertising did the midterms add?

Murdoch attributed some $50 million of midterm-related advertising revenue to Fox's national networks. He cited another $250 million, equivalent to €223.1 million, at local stations. Tubi added $50 million in attributed political advertising.

The three cited amounts total $350 million. Local stations account for about 71% of that sum. National networks and Tubi account for $50 million each. The split indicates where Fox placed midterm inventory, although it does not disclose how much of the company's 47% advertising growth came from political spending or how much remained from other advertisers.

The disclosed $350 million equals about 7.7% of Fox's $4.57 billion quarterly revenue. The comparison provides scale, but Fox does not present the attribution as a separate segment result.

The midterms effect reached beyond Fox News. National network inventory, local station advertising and Tubi all benefited from political demand.

What does the result change?

For practitioners in television and streaming advertising, the quarter shows that major events can lift monetization without improving every audience metric. The FIFA World Cup and midterms contributed to a 47% advertising increase. Fox News ratings remained lower.

Tubi occupied two positions in the result. Murdoch cited Tubi as a contributor to the record performance. He also attributed $50 million in midterm advertising to the service. The figures provide no Tubi subscriber, viewing or standalone revenue total. Its contribution cannot be isolated from the wider group.

Fox's next results will test whether the World Cup and midterm advertising lift persists, and whether Murdoch's fatigue explanation remains credible as television consumption returns to routine levels.