Almost half of conservative voters say Fox News Channel isn't their favorite source for television news, and the No. 1 network for those disaffected viewers is Newsmax, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports survey on media.
The Rasmussen poll found that while 52% of conservatives still see Fox as their top choice, the newly emerging Newsmax TV grabbed 17% of conservative viewers who see it as their favorite. Another 9% say they watch One America News (OAN) and 20% saying they prefer "some other network" – yielding 46% of right-leaning viewers unhappy with Fox.
Newsmax is now solidly ranked as the nation’s fourth-highest-rated cable news channel, behind Fox, MSNBC and CNN. Nielsen reports that more than 30 million cable viewers tune in to Newsmax regularly while a McLaughlin & Associates survey found fully 20% of all U.S. voters watch the network.
Meanwhile, viewing habits are changing among conservatives, the poll found:
- 38% of conservative TV news viewers say they’ve changed their favorite network in the past year.
- Among people most often watching Newsmax: 63% say their favorite network has changed.
- With OAN viewers, 53% said they changed their favorite network.
People who said they are very conservative also resulted in higher viewership for Newsmax and OAN than among the people who identified as somewhat conservative, the poll found, but Fox News remained the top choice for both categories.
The survey of 935 conservative likely voters was conducted on May 17-20, and carried a margin of sampling error of three percentage points, with a 95% level of confidence.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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