Fox News May Be More Disruption-Proof Than Ever

On Oct. 6, Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott gathered with her senior leadership team and some Fox News originals like Steve Doocy, Brit Hume and Trace Gallagher in Nasdaq’s Studio A, right in the middle of Times Square, to ring the closing bell.

A few minutes before she rang the bell, Scott took to the podium to deliver remarks celebrating Fox News Channel’s 30th anniversary, recognizing a media platform that transformed not only the cable news landscape, but the political landscape as well.

“As we celebrate 30 years of stories reported and analyzed, and history witnessed at each turn, we also look ahead because the next chapter of media is being shaped right now by new technology, new platforms, and new ways of connecting with audiences,” the CEO added.

Fox News is a powerful force in American politics and culture, and a dominant one at that. It decimates the cable news competition in the ratings (it now tops CNN and MS NOW combined handily), and over the last year has had its sights set on the broadcast networks.

And an interview on the channel can still make or break powerful figures. Just look at Katie Zacharia.

The newly-minted White House press secretary was facing a barrage of criticism over her first press conference earlier this month, and questions over whether she was really a working lawyer.

But it was a Sean Hannity interview that was the final straw, with the Fox News host interrogating her about the criticisms and her past statements. The next morning, the White House said that she would be exiting the role after only five days on the job, with some pundits comparing her appearance on Hannity to a mob hit.

Hannity, for his part, tells The Hollywood Reporter that he wasn’t a hitman, he was just doing his job.

“My audience knows exactly where I stand, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to ask tough questions when they’re warranted,” he says, adding: “I gave her the opportunity to tell her side of the story and let the audience judge for themselves. I assumed she would take advantage of the opportunity and put all of this to rest before the next briefing.”

Hannity notes, “I’ve been doing this long enough to know that people will have strong reactions. My job is to ask the questions, get answers and let the audience decide for themselves. I allowed her a lot of time uninterrupted for her to answer.”

The power of the Fox News platform at work. It can make a political career, or it can break it.

When it launched 30 years ago however it was a challenger brand, a disruptive bet made by Murdoch and Roger Ailes that there were Americans not being well-served by the status quo, CNN.

But what has many executives at its competitors especially jealous is that Fox News has also been pouring vastly more resources into digital, willing to disrupt itself … at least a little bit, even as CNN and MS NOW are only just now really investing in the space as they launch their own direct-to-consumer products, playing a game of catchup.

“We still feel like an upstart. It’s very interesting to be 30 years in, and still feel like you’re the challenger,” says Dana Perino, the longtime host of America’s Newsroom and The Five. “We are number one, but they still love to put us down. It’s pretty funny. You look at the ratings across the board. I mean, we’re number one all the time, and I think there’s probably grudging admiration for Fox.”

Hannity, who was there on day one, was more blunt (as he often is).

“I think the story of Fox is going to be studied for decades and decades to come,” he says. “Honestly, what it’s been able to accomplish as a channel, I think it has become the most impactful channel that’s available politically and newsworthy-wise, and it’s a vision that did fill a void and is still filling a void, I would argue.”

Now, Rupert Murdoch views Fox as a core part of his legacy, as last year’s family trust battle underscores, with his son Lachlan ultimately securing control of the empire after battling (and ultimately settling with) his siblings.

“It would be a disaster for at least the US and Australia if these assets fell into the wrong hands,” Rupert Murdoch said in testimony released as part of the hearings, adding that Fox News and his other media brands provided an “alternative voice” and were “essential for democracies.”

From a challenger brand to being essential for democracies is no small jump.

At the core of Fox’s operations is the relentless focus on the viewers. A veteran CNN executive once told me that at CNN, the news was the star, which explained why when something big was happening, TV sets across the world would be tuned to those three red letters.

At Fox, the viewer is the star, or at least the north star, the thing that everyone is chasing.

Hannity describes Fox like a pyramid. At other media companies, he argues, some CEO or editor-in-chief is at the top, dictating the vision to those below them (see CBS News and Bari Weiss). It’s a structure that many outside Fox project on the media company. Hannity, however, doesn’t see it like that. He describes an operation where the executives, and even the Murdochs, are at the bottom of the pyramid.

“At the top of the triangle in my world is the viewer, they are the most important person in our orbit because if we’re not serving them, then we’re failing,” he says. “Below the viewer would be the host because they have the closest relationship with the viewer. Below them are all these hardworking producers and tech people and researchers and writers, and all these people that help put a show together.

“And at the bottom of the triangle, the base of that triangle — and this is how it’s always kind of worked for me — are people like you mentioned: Rupert, Lachlan, Suzanne Scott,” he continued. “They are a support pushing up not just the vision, but they’re helping me to get that viewer. And by offering that base of support, it makes me better, and makes me want to be better at what I do to help achieve the goal of satisfying the viewers that are watching.”

What makes for Fox News’ secret sauce is a little harder to formulate. Sure, it has plenty of conservative and right-of-center voices, especially in primetime, but there are plenty of others that do that too.

Hannity recalls a scene from the film Private Parts, where Howard Stern is introduced to the audience with the “radio voice” that was once a dime a dozen on local stations across America. Hannity, doing an impression of Stern in the movie, says he relates to the scene and to the shock jock’s plight in the film (“although I would argue he’s gotten a little too woke for everybody I know,” he quips).

“When [Stern] became his unique self, when [Don] Imus became his unique self, when Rush [Limbaugh] became his unique self, when [Bill] O’Reilly was his unique self, and then you go all the way up to the lineup all throughout Fox … once you become your authentic self, I think that’s when you can do your best work,” Hannity says in explaining the channel’s approach to opinion programming.

Any conversation with Fox News on-air talent will inevitably include them noting that no one tells them what to say, they are expressing themselves fully.

“We are so protected that we have confidence to be able to say whatever we think, and know that as long as we’re being honest and truthful, and coming from a good place, we’re going to get back up here,” says Perino. “I’ve never worked anywhere else. I don’t know if that’s true in other places, but our corporate culture here is really good. In fact, I don’t think it’s ever been better.”

To hear Fox News talent explain it, the on-air success is a combination of the editorial voice that encompasses its news and opinion programming, as well as the on-air product itself. For what its worth, executives at competing TV news organizations agree that Fox’s on-air polish is a big part of its success.

“I like the pacing of news that Fox has,” says Hannity. “It moves from story to story to story, rather than getting you know caught up in a long NPR boring-ish delivery, which just doesn’t capture my interest.”

“There is a quality to the aesthetic that is pleasing to the eye, right?” adds Perino.

But the editorial approach of Fox News remains underappreciated. The central premise of Rupert’s gambit 30 years ago was that the elite news media in New York and Washington D.C. were not delivering all the news and opinions that were resonant in communities outside of the coasts. The company still operates within that rubric.

“I think it’s honestly our competitive nature, our mentality of we’re not the elites, we’re representing those people back home,” says Lawrence Jones, a co-host of Fox & Friends. “I’m always thinking, how does this impact Texas? How does this impact my people that I love? And then I think about the national implications. But I look at it from that lens because I gotta go back home. My house is still in Texas. I gotta go back home and face stuff.”

“So if I go and I take this position, when I get home and I’m going through the grocery store and I’m going through Walmart or Kroger or H-E-B, I’m trying to channel my inner Texas,” he adds. “That’s the worst thing could ever happen to me, is for someone to say ‘what happened to you, you represented me, and you abandoned me.’ So, I think many of us, from a certain degree, carry that type of mentality.”

That part of the conversation is reflected in Fox’s opinion shows, but less appreciated is how it shows up in the choices made in Fox’s news programming.

Fox executives would tell you that, while they may not have the vast global resources of a CNN, they still pour real money into news, with correspondents stationed around the U.S. and the world ready to spring into action when reality dictates it. Just look at Trey Yingst’s coverage of the aftermath of the attempted hijacking of the flight from the UAE to Israel last month, or its coverage of the L.A. wildfires last year led by Bill Melugin.

But regular viewers of Fox’s news programs will also notice that, on days where there isn’t that obvious global story, they are happy to have pundits on to talk about the news, often grilled by Fox anchors, and they have an appreciation for angles of approach that is nonetheless distinct from its competition.

Perino, for example, notes the upcoming midterm elections, where Democrat James Talarico appears to be running ahead of Republican Ken Paxton, threatening to turn a deep red Senate seat blue.

“But the same is also true in Minnesota, where Michelle Tafoya could actually win, the first Republican in 18 years to win in Minnesota,” Perino says. “Just maybe we should talk about that race too.”

Jones, recalling a segment that he says defines that approach, noted a series he did for the morning show, where he visits barbershops across the country to talk politics.

“I’ve always told people I learned how to do TV in the barbershop,” he says. “The barbershop in Black America is the center of the community, politics, culture. Every topic is debated while you’re getting your haircut. Older gentlemen, younger gentlemen, you spar back and forth. You learn how to refine your argument in the barbershop.

“I told the bosses a long time ago, if you really want to capture the community, you’ve got to go to the barbershop, that’s where the real political conversations and cultural topics are happening,” he adds. “So a couple years ago, during the election, I told the bosses this, and they were game. We went around the country, went to barbershops, started having conversations, and in my final barbershop in the Bronx, then former-President Donald Trump came to the barbershop and had a conversation with me, and for a network to put resources behind that showed that they cared about my vision, cared about my instincts, and saw how it could attract audiences. I mean, I’ve got to be honest, the barbershops we were going to were mostly Latin and Black. That is not what stereotypically you think of as Fox News. Yet it was a really successful series.”

But Fox’s news programming has also benefited tremendously from the fact that President Trump, and people that want to reach Trump, know he watches religiously. Corporate executives, people who hope to secure government jobs, and even cabinet secretaries all lobby to be booked, knowing that he may be watching.

As Zacharia’s performance on Hannity demonstrated however, those appearances also carry risk.

Bret Baier’s Special Report in particular has become a must-stop destination for international politicians and business leaders, as well as Democrats seeking to make inroads with Fox’s large audience.

In just the last few months Baier has scored interviews with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Sylvester Stallone, Vice President Vance, and multiple cabinet officials, while his colleague Martha MacCallum has held newsmaking interviews with Michigan Democratic Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed and New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani.

“How silly people sound when they act like ignoring Fox or ignoring conservative media is a viable path forward, especially for people that are trying to get folks to vote for them,” says Jessica Tarlov, the liberal co-host on The Five. “I do think that there are two schools of thought on how to show up in these environments for a Democrat. One, which is show up and take a big swing and get your viral clip, and I think that has a very short shelf life. You get a couple of days of a great news cycle churn, you fundraise a lot if it’s an elected, for instance.

“But then what happens? You didn’t really advance any theory of the case that’s going to be resonant in a long term way,” she adds. “If you’re in a D+50 seat, I understand why that might be exciting to you, but the second approach, which I think is so much better, is to be able to get your clip, if that’s what you’re looking for, but also to dialogue with someone who thinks differently than you and model the fact that your ideas can take some pushback and to show your dexterity with it, and that’s why [Fox News regular] Pete Buttigieg is so good at it, right?”

Fox’s business is benefiting too. In August, Lachlan Murdoch revealed that Fox News Media had added more than 400 new advertisers in its last fiscal year, an astonishing number of brands that were new to its news platforms.

Indeed, a media buying source says that for companies that have any business in front of the government, or that are hoping to persuade political leaders, Fox News has become a must buy, thanks in large part to the fact that Trump is known to watch at any hour of the day when he has free time.

Of course, Fox’s relationship to President Trump is more complicated than it may appear on the surface.
On the one hand, Fox’s talent has served as a proving ground for government officials, with Secretary Pete Hegseth, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, Secretary Sean Duffy and Ambassador Mike Huckabee all former Fox hosts (until Oct. 13 Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle was also in that group, until troubling reports appeared in The Wall Street Journal, which shares ownership with Fox). Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump hosts a weekend show, and his former Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt recently joined as a contributor.

Trump has been a daily or weekly fixture of Fox News for about half its thirty years, the last 11 as President, former President or Presidential hopeful, and for years before that when he had a weekly call-in segment on the morning show and appeared frequently as a guest, segments that helped introduce him to that audience in a new way.

Hannity says that before he ever ran for office, he would have late night calls with Trump, where they talked about policy and politics and other things that would ultimately become a core part of his political identity.

“Those late night conversations convinced me,” Hannity recalls. “Not only was he conservative, but he was different, and he thought out of the box, and he was unique. And I realized at some point that he’s going to have an ability to connect in ways that no traditional politician would be able to connect.”

On the other hand, Trump in recent weeks has lashed out at Fox for interviewing Democrats on its news programming, and lamented the channel giving Tarlov a seat at the table on The Five (never mind that the show’s format wouldn’t work without the token Democrat). He also complained about the channel not covering his rallies as aggressively as it had in the past. He is blunt about his view that he sees Fox as being part of his team, and views airtime for the opposition as not being congruent with that view.

Yet, he still has a strong relationship with many at Fox News. Baier is an occasional golf partner, and Hannity makes no secret of the fact that they are still personal friends, though he takes pains to note that he tries to separate their friendship from his day job.

“I don’t think most people really understand him, which is frustrating to me,” Hannity says, adding that he makes an effort to split that personal relationship from what he says on his show. “I do make it a point of not hanging out with him. He invites me to stay [at Mar-a-Lago]. I don’t go very often, and it’s because if we’re talking as friends, I want to be as blunt and honest as I can be. And if we’re doing it professionally, I just need to be able to ask whatever I need to ask him. Period. Nothing. No holds barred.

“He’s never asked for questions ahead of an interview. I’ve never given him questions out of an interview,” he adds. “He lets me be myself, and you know, it just endures because he understands and respects what I’m doing, and I respect that he’s the President of our country now.”

But as jealous as other news executives may be of Fox’s ratings, two TV news veterans (one currently at a competitor, and one former competitor) says that it is Fox’s spending on digital that really make them jealous.

Fox News’ digital efforts, to be certain, are not a replacement for the linear business, but Fox Nation launched nearly eight years ago, and has found a niche with documentaries and entertainment fare that is seen as a complement to the channel, which also streams live through Fox One.

And Fox, acutely aware of the competition that conservative talk podcasts present, has poured significant resources into the digital space, acquiring and launching podcasts like Ruthless, The Riley Gaines Show and Will Cain Country, as well as shows that lean on Fox talent like The Girls and Hannity’s show Hang Out, where he does longform interviews about politics, pop culture, and even topics out of left field like UAPs and the afterlife.

“It gives you a chance to really just lay back and go deeper into issues and into people that I find refreshing and kind of scratches a niche for me,” he says. “I’m a worker. I like to work. So if I’m not working, I’m bored.”

And while the conservative podcast landscape is cluttered, with shows like Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro still holding large audiences (not to mention programs from former Fox hosts like Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson), the company has even found a way to benefit indirectly from that, with Red Seat Ventures operating out of Fox’s Tubi division, and providing services to former Fox News talent in the podcast space.

Still, there is a generational divide at play, and the repercussions could still be felt. As any TV veteran will tell you, the digital business is simply smaller and more cutthroat than traditional TV, and if linear continues to decline at the pace it has for the last decade, every TV news outlet will face the financial consequences, and Fox is no exception.

“The traditional people want to get their morning cup of joe, and they want to hear the news of the day, your reaction, your authentic opinion about what’s happening,” Jones says. “Then there’s the people of my generation, the younger generation that just wants sound bites, they want TikTok-ification. You have to serve both of them.”

Even that, however, could be an opportunity. Tarlov says that, based on her research on younger consumers, they are much more open to consuming media from people they disagree with.

“They’re not as siloed, they created the debate vertical on TikTok, for instance. That’s because young people want to see folks talking to each other,” she says. “There is such a genuine interest to listen to people with alternative points of view and see how they represent their beliefs versus this person that believes strongly in their particular worldview. So I think that’s really heartening and exciting for the future.”

And it’s an opportunity for TV news operations, regardless of their political leanings.

But there may be one other thing that makes Fox, Fox. And that’s Hannity himself. Both Perino and Jones credit him with getting their start at the channel and helping to hone their on-air personalities.
Hannity, for his part, isn’t one to dissuade that perception of himself as the channel’s in-house talent scout and professional booster.

He recalls an event he attended with both Trump and Rupert Murdoch.

“The President goes [to Murdoch] ‘why do you even pay him? He’ll do it for free.’ I’m looking at him and I’m like, ‘will you please shush if you mind?’” he recalls. “But there was a certain degree of truth in that statement. Although I wouldn’t do it for free.”

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