Related: Upfront Season Opens in a Bullish Mood
It will be tough for Fox News Channel to top 2016. A crazy political year boosted the cable-news leader to the top of the overall basic-cable ratings, producing record viewership and revenue for parent 21st Century Fox.
The network also went through some turmoil as former Fox News president Roger Ailes, who launched the channel in 1996, was forced out amid allegations of sexual harassment by network staffers. (Ailes has denied the charges.) The departure of anchor and rising star Megyn Kelly for NBC News also forced it to make changes in primetime. And ad-sales chief Paul Rittenberg, one of Fox News' first staffers, also announced plans to leave this spring.
The big audiences are drawing ad dollars to TV news and the cable news networks across the board. In January, spending on cable news, covering President Donald Trump's inauguration and the lead-up to it, jumped 16.8%, per research company Standard Media Index. Fox News was up 34.2%, CNN was up 19.9% and MSNBC gained 49.2%. Commercial costs also rose sharply on the cable news networks, with 30-second spots on up 50.1% on MSNBC, 48% on Fox News and 28.8% on CNN.
Reaping from Ratings Power
What we're going to be talking about in our upfront presentation this year is really the power and the consistency of the ratings, Fox News VP of eastern sales Dominick Rossi said. As good as 2016 was for us, 2017 has already started out with even higher ratings, so we definitely see a lot of interest in our brands for the foreseeable future.
Last year's presidential primary and general-election debates generated huge ratings for Fox News. A debate on Fox Business Network drew 11 million viewers in January of 2016, helping solidify Fox Business as a more formidable competitor to CNBC, the business-news category leader.
Big events haven't stopped since the election. Last month, when the president addressed a joint session of congress, Fox News drew almost 11 million viewers, topping all of its broadcast and cable competitors.
In addition to being No. 1 in total viewers in cable, so far this year, Fox News was first or second among adults 18 to 49, 25 to 54, 35 to 64 and 50 plus in households with incomes of $100,000 or more in all dayparts.
There is no denying that the election was a bonanza for the news outlets, Horizon Media chief investment officer Marianne Gambelli said. Record ratings across all broadcasters definitely drove more dollars to news.
News still isn't for everyone. In some cases, clients who don't normally buy news probably shifted some dollars to take advantage of the ratings surge, but I'm sure most clients whose demographics skew older and would already buy news just spent more on that daypart, she said.
Related: Lifestyle Shows on a Hot Streak With Sponsors
In election years, news networks are able to sell premium packages that include debates, conventions and election-night coverage. And Rossi said there were advertisers who signed on only for big events. Some became regular advertisers on the channel.
We're not going to have set scheduled things like we had last year, Rossi said. However, there are certainly going to be big nights throughout the year. But it's really every hour of every day throughout the year. So no matter when your schedule's going to run, you can rely on the fact that you're going to get a live, loyal audience and have strong delivery. And Fox News makes sure that delivery takes place in the quarter when the campaign runs.
Fox News plans to begin making its upfront presentations to media buying agencies next month. On the agenda will be a new street-level studio at its Sixth Avenue headquarters that it began using on election night and a new primetime lineup following the departures of Kelly and Greta Van Susteren.
New Shows, New Avails
Rossi noted that the network has smoothly moved Tucker Carlson Tonight into the 9 p.m. time slot (replacing Kelly's The Kelly File), and launched The First 100 Days With Martha MacCallum at 7 p.m. It is not clear what will happen at 7 p.m. after April.
New shows could mean new sponsorship opportunities, Rossi said.
One opportunity Fox News will push more this upfront is having individual advertisers sponsor an entire hour of programming, usually with fewer commercials. It takes the right client because it's a big ask, Rossi said. You're going to fund an hour of television. We'll make sure the audience knows they're getting extended coverage because of you.
And some might want to advertise on Fox News because there's a good chance the president might be watching. There have been a couple of advertisers with corporate campaigns, Rossi said. It is an interesting time and it does open up the possibility of some campaigns that are targeted to D.C.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Related: Upfront Season Opens in a Bullish Mood
