American boomers’ favourite TV network is trying new digital tricks
Illustration: Brett Ryder
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A s missiles rain down on the Middle East, Trey Yingst fires off salvos of news from his smartphone. The 32-year-old chief foreign correspondent of Fox News dons a flak jacket and stands on a Tel Aviv balcony to file reports several times a day. His main audience is on cable. But Mr Yingst has cultivated another set of viewers on TikTok, where he posts bulletins to 1m followers. He is such a prolific poster that viewers sometimes enquire after his safety when he has been offline for more than a few hours.
Fox is the undisputed king of American TV news. Long the tribune of conservative America, it has become so widely watched that it is also the most popular cable news channel among Democrats. As well as out-rating CNN and MS NOW, its main cable rivals, it sometimes beats even broadcast outlets like CBS News. Donald Trump’s return to the White House has brought back advertisers, who are now less likely to see Fox as brand-threateningly right-wing. War has juiced viewership further. Fox News recently recorded its highest Saturday ratings in over 20 years.
Yet even in this commanding position, Fox exemplifies a problem in the TV -news business. Viewership is booming, but mainly among boomers. As its ads for pension annuities and erectile-dysfunction pills suggest, Fox News’s median cable viewer is pushing 70. The share of American homes with cable has fallen below half for the first time since the 1980s, as young people turn to streaming. With its focus on live programming, Fox has kept its linear- TV revenue growing, and has therefore been cautious about pushing digital alternatives. Fox Corporation (which offers sport and entertainment as well as news) made 92% of its revenue last year from linear tv, estimates Bernstein, a broker.
Fox is now trying to lure younger viewers, with new content and new distribution channels. Start with the programming. Young faces have been promoted: alongside the dashing Mr Yingst are millennials such as Peter Doocy and Lawrence Jones, and members of Gen Z like Brett Cooper. Sean Hannity, a long-serving presenter, has been coaxed into a pair of jeans for “Hang Out”, a podcast-style chatshow featuring youth-friendly guests such as Matthew Tkachuk, a hockey player. Fox has struck a licensing deal with “Ruthless”, a swaggering podcast whose slogan is “Keep the faith, hold the line and own the libs.” It is said to be negotiating a partnership with Kalshi, a prediction market popular with young men, to provide betting odds for news events.
As well as rejuvenating its output, Fox is putting its news in places where young audiences will find it. In August it launched a streaming service, Fox One. Sport is at its core, but about a third of the time spent on the app is on news, and those viewers who watch news use the platform three times as much as those who don’t, Fox says. Fox’s rights to this year’s football World Cup, to be held mainly in America, should tempt more young men to sign up.
In addition to building its own digital platform, Fox is also fishing for viewers on social media. There its audience is very different from the cable crowd: nearly half of Fox News’s viewers on TikTok are aged 18-34, it says. It is making some shows just for social media. Mr Hannity’s “Hang Out” is on YouTube and Spotify, not the Fox News TV channel. Social content brings in probably tens of millions of dollars in ad revenue. The bigger hope is that the audience will like what it sees enough to subscribe to Fox One or cable, where the big money is made.
Will the youth buy it? Fox’s chief advantage is that other TV -news brands are in disarray. MS NOW is suffering an identity crisis, recently changing its name from MSNBC after separating from NBC Universal. CNN ’s first streaming effort, four years ago, was canned after 30 days; the network now faces acquisition by Paramount, which is looking to cut costs. The new streaming players, Netflix, Amazon and Apple, have no intention of entering the news business at a fraught time in politics. Other digital players like the New York Times lack Fox’s experience in video.
Yet Fox faces conservative competition online of a sort it has not encountered in TV. Whereas its main cable competitors are liberal-leaning, online influencers bend to the right. A survey by the Pew Research Centre of 500 “news influencers” in 2024 found that self-described conservatives outnumbered liberals by a quarter. America’s influencer ecosystem is particularly strong: Americans are twice as likely as Britons to say they pay attention to news influencers, and can name three times more of them, according to a survey by Oxford’s Reuters Institute. It is telling that Mr Hannity’s new set, with its bare brick walls and neon sign, resembles that of Joe Rogan, a self-made podcaster with a colossal following.
Hounded
Competing with influencers on social media is a risky game. Algorithmic tweaks can vaporise traffic overnight. So can regulators: many countries are considering banning teens from social apps. Tech firms hoard audience data and send referral traffic reluctantly. And it is unclear how much news services benefit when their correspondents are social-media stars. Research shows that audiences are bad at attributing stories to the correct news brand when they have encountered them on their social feed. One man in a helmet on a Tel Aviv balcony looks much like the next.
The biggest danger for news outlets is that meeting viewers on social media simply trains them not to go anywhere else. News executives hope that youngsters will eventually grow into their parents’ viewing habits and subscribe to Fox or other news brands that they first encountered online. Craig Robertson of the Reuters Institute is sceptical. Even when youngsters turn on a tv, they treat it as a “big phone”, he says; YouTube accounts for more than a tenth of TV viewing time in America. Fox News is as good as ever at owning the libs. But it is getting harder to own the audience. ■
논증 분석
유형: diagnosis
핵심 주장
Fox News는 디지털 전략으로 젊은 시청자 유치를 시도하고 있지만, 소셜 미디어 경쟁과 시청자 이탈 위험이라는 구조적 한계에 직면해 있다.
논리구조
- 전제: Fox News는 미국 TV 뉴스의 절대 강자로, Donald Trump 재집권과 전쟁 특수로 역대 최고 시청률을 기록하는 등 현재 강력한 위치를 점하고 있다.
- 진단: 그러나 Fox News의 케이블 시청자 중위 연령이 70세에 육박하고, 미국 내 케이블 보급률이 1980년대 이후 처음으로 50% 아래로 떨어지는 등 젊은 세대의 이탈이 구조적 위협으로 부상하고 있다. Fox Corporation의 매출 92%가 여전히 선형 TV에서 나온다.
- 처방: Fox News는 젊은 앵커(Brett Cooper, Peter Doocy, Lawrence Jones 등) 전면 배치, Sean Hannity의 팟캐스트형 프로그램 ‘Hang Out’ 론칭, ‘Ruthless’ 팟캐스트 라이선스 계약, 예측시장 Kalshi와의 협상 등 콘텐츠를 젊은 취향으로 쇄신하고 있다.
- 처방: 2024년 8월 스트리밍 서비스 Fox One을 출시하고, 2026년 FIFA 월드컵 중계권을 확보해 젊은 남성 구독자를 유인하는 한편, TikTok과 YouTube 등 소셜 미디어에서 독자적 시청자층(18~34세 비중 거의 절반)을 구축 중이다.
- 논거: 경쟁 TV 뉴스 브랜드(MSNBC, CNN)가 정체성 위기와 인수합병 등 혼란을 겪는 반면, Netflix, Amazon, Apple 같은 신규 스트리밍 사업자는 뉴스 사업 진출 의사가 없어 Fox News에게 유리한 환경이 조성되어 있다.
- 반론: 온라인에서는 케이블과 달리 보수 성향 인플루언서들이 강력한 경쟁자로 부상하고 있다. Pew Research Centre 조사에 따르면 뉴스 인플루언서 중 보수 성향이 진보보다 25% 많으며, Joe Rogan 같은 독립 팟캐스터가 막대한 영향력을 행사하고 있다.
- 반론: 소셜 미디어 의존 전략은 알고리즘 변경에 의한 트래픽 소멸, 청소년 SNS 규제 가능성, 플랫폼의 데이터 독점, 시청자의 뉴스 브랜드 귀속 인식 부재 등 구조적 리스크를 안고 있다.
- 반론: Reuters Institute의 Craig Robertson에 따르면, 소셜 미디어에서 뉴스를 접한 젊은 세대가 결국 케이블이나 스트리밍 구독으로 전환될 것이라는 낙관론은 근거가 희박하며, 젊은 세대는 TV조차 ‘큰 스마트폰’처럼 사용하는 경향이 있다.
결론
Fox News의 디지털 전략은 현재 TV 뉴스 시장에서 가장 정교하지만, 소셜 미디어가 시청자를 자사 플랫폼으로 전환시키기보다 외부에 묶어두는 함정이 될 수 있어 수익 기반인 유료 구독자 확보로 이어질지는 불확실하다.
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