Fox News Turns 30 With One Eye on a Post-Cable Future

Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via AP

“[Rupert] Murdoch probably will have the toughest time making it in the TV news game,” J. Max Robbins and Gary Levin said in Variety in 1996.

But Murdoch and Fox News unquestionably made it in the TV news game. And now, they’re looking beyond it.

Fox News turned 30 on Wednesday with little left to prove in the cable news ratings race — and an increasingly large portion of its business now built outside the medium that made it a powerhouse.

Since its launch on Oct. 7, 1996, viewers have consumed more than 265 billion minutes — or 4.4 billion hours — of Fox News programming, according to Nielsen data obtained by Mediaite.

Fox has been the most-watched cable news network for 24 consecutive years. In its most recent fiscal year, the network commanded more than half of all cable news viewership, according to a Fox Corp. filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The milestone comes, however, as the business that made Fox News dominant undergoes a profound shift. Cord-cutting has steadily eroded the traditional cable bundle, pushing news networks to find audiences — and revenue — elsewhere.

So the network has spent years doing just that.

Fox News Media projected last year that its businesses outside linear television would generate $500 million in revenue in 2025, executive vice president of ad sales Trey Gargano told Axios. Those operations include podcasts, books, streaming, and other digital products and have collectively posted double-digit annual growth since 2020.

Fox Nation, the network’s subscription streaming service, launched in 2018. It has expanded beyond politics and news to include entertainment, true crime, and faith-based programming. Fox has also built out its podcast operation, book imprint, and Fox Weather, its free, ad-supported streaming service.

Though Fox is hardly alone in looking beyond the traditional cable bundle. CNN launched its $6.99-a-month All Access streaming tier in 2025, while NBC News rolled out its own digital subscription product to diversify revenue beyond advertising and cable fees. MS NOW has similarly expanded beyond television with a paid membership program and live events.

And Fox’s rivals are posting digital gains of their own. CNN said last week that it added nearly one million YouTube subscribers in 2026, bringing its total to 19.9 million, while surpassing 16 million followers on TikTok. The network also reported a 25% year-over-year jump in live digital viewership during the third quarter.

Indeed, the competition outside cable is considerably tighter than the ratings race Fox has long dominated on television.

Fox led news brands with 918 million YouTube views during this year’s third quarter alone, according to Emplifi data, but MS NOW was close behind with 889 million, while CNN generated 712 million. CNN also said it surpassed its U.S. news competitors in September to become the most-subscribed news organization on YouTube and the most-followed on TikTok.

Still, Fox’s growth on those platforms has been significant. The network generated 3.5 billion YouTube views through the first nine months of 2026 and has led news brands on the platform for eight consecutive quarters.

Its expansion on TikTok has been even more dramatic. Fox’s account grew from roughly 25,000 followers in June 2024 to more than 11.8 million by September 2026. Between August 2025 and August 2026, its follower count more than doubled, while video views climbed 41% and total engagements jumped 83%.

Those platforms have helped Fox to reach an audience considerably younger than the one traditionally associated with cable news. Across television, digital and social platforms, Fox News Media puts its median audience age at 45, based on Nielsen, Comscore, YouTube analytics and social media data. Gargano previously told Axios that Fox’s digital audience was, on average, 30% to 50% younger than the general linear television audience.

The network is also drawing viewers beyond its conservative core. Nielsen and MRI-Simmons data supplied by Fox show it recorded a longer “length of tune” — the amount of time viewers spend watching — than CNN or MS NOW among Democrats, Republicans and independents in every measured month from January through July.

Fox enters its fourth decade, then, in an unusual position: Its traditional television operation remains dominant even as the company invests in businesses designed to reach audiences beyond it. The next test is whether Fox can translate the advantage it built over 30 years on cable into the far more fragmented fight for viewers outside it.

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