Fox CEO On Dominion Lawsuit Battle: 'A Lot of Noise'

During the 2023 Morgan Stanley Technology Conference Thursday, Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch commented on the current legal battle with Dominion Voting:

Q: Morgan Stanley/Ben Swinburne – “How would you describe the relative strength of the brand and the business today particularly relative to CNN and MSNBC?”

A: Lachlan Murdoch -- “It's doing very well. The position of FOX News is and if you research or you talk to either focus groups with any of our viewers, they see FOX News as not just a news channel, but really a channel that speaks to sort of middle America and respects the values of middle America as a media business that is most relevant to them as opposed to simply a news channel. So, the brand is incredibly strong, and that's why we've launched new businesses off of FOX News.

Lachlan Murdoch

So, under the FOX News Media umbrella, we've launched FOX Weather, which is doing incredibly well as a FAST channel, advertising focused channel and FOX Nation which is a small SVOD subscription video on demand service for FOX News that sits alongside as complementary programing to FOX News. Those businesses have done incredibly well, but obviously that's really because the core business is incredibly strong. If I look at just February, so a few days ago, the end of February, I know we finished February, not only beating MSNBC and just specific to your point of your question, MSNBC and CNN combined, but we finished February as the highest rating channel, not just news channel, but channel in all of cable television in the United States. And this is really led off the strength of our programing, the strength of shows like The Five, people would be surprised, but the number one news show in America is The Five. And it’s a great energetic show, panel show that has opinions from all sides of politics. It’s probably one of the reasons why FOX News has the best demographics and the best diversity of any news channel. 

You know, we have more Democrats and Independents watching FOX News than watch CNN or watch MSNBC. So, more Democrats watch FOX News than watch CNN or MSNBC. We have more Hispanics watching FOX News. We have more Asians watching FOX News than watch CNN or MSNBC. So, the position of the channel is very strong and doing very well. And this is really important — it's a credit to Suzanne Scott and all of her team there. They've done a tremendous job at running the business and building this business….this is a hard business to run. And I think, you know, Suzanne Scott has done a tremendous job.”

Q: Morgan Stanley/Ben Swinburne -- “I wanted to ask you about the Dominion lawsuits. Is there anything you can share, with the audience on that situation?”

A: Lachlan Murdoch -- “I think the update is a short update that goes to court in April. So, we'll all be waiting for that. I think fundamentally what I’ll just say about it is that a news organization has an obligation, and it is an obligation, to report news fulsomely, wholesomely and without fear or favor. And that's what FOX News has always done, and that's what FOX News will always do. And I think a lot of the noise that you hear about this case is actually not about the law and it's not about journalism. And it's really about the politics, and that's unfortunately more reflective of this sort of polarized society that we live in today.”