Fox News Builds Beyond Cable Ahead of 30th Anniversary

As Fox News Channel approaches its 30th anniversary in October, the network finds itself in an unusual position: its cable business remains remarkably strong, yet the company has spent years building a constellation of products beyond the linear feed.

Fox News averaged more than 1.7 million primetime viewers in September, more than double MSNBC's audience and more than triple CNN's, according to Nielsen data cited by TheWrap. The cable segment that includes Fox News and Fox Business generated $7.35 billion in revenue in the fiscal year ended June 30, up 6% from the previous year, and $3.1 billion in segment profit.

“Fox has the luxury of managing linear television’s decline from a position of extraordinary strength,” Tim Hanlon, founder of media consultancy Vertere Group, told TheWrap. “Whatever you think of Fox News — and I have plenty of issues with it — very few media brands enter this transition with that much habitual viewing, audience loyalty and cash flow already in place.”

“Fox has the luxury of managing linear television’s decline from a position of extraordinary strength.” — Tim Hanlon

That strength has funded a multi-platform expansion. Fox Nation, a subscription service launched in 2018, initially leaned toward programming resembling Fox’s primetime lineup before shifting to documentaries, lifestyle, faith-based and sports content. Fox Weather, a free ad-supported streaming service, debuted in 2021 and now reaches a wide range of distributors. In August 2025, Fox launched Fox One, a direct-to-consumer bundle of news, sports and entertainment that requires no cable subscription.

Fox News Media president and executive editor Jay Wallace, who has been with the network since its 1996 launch, said Fox News Channel will remain the “centerpiece” of the business even as platforms evolve. “There is this cascading effect” from the newsgathering operation, he told TheWrap, explaining that a single assignment decision — sending chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst to cover a story — can now produce material for television, social media, podcasts and Fox Nation documentaries.

Bill Hemmer, an “America’s Newsroom” anchor who joined Fox in 2005, recalled early experiments with “Fox Online” when the relationship between TV and digital was still unclear. But he still sees the morning show as the foundation. “What we do between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. … that’s the baseline for what we are about,” Hemmer told TheWrap. “Without that, by the way, we would not have all the other bells and whistles that you see on social media.”

Sharri Berg, a member of Fox’s original launch team and now president of Fox Weather, said the network’s early disadvantage against larger competitors forced it to push technology before it was ready. “We always would push technology before it was ready,” Berg said. “Being there fast, being there first and getting on the air with as few people as possible. You know, you’re lean, you’re agile, and we really wore that as a badge of honor.” That newsgathering and tech infrastructure, she added, “is not locked inside a cable channel anymore.”

Fox News Digital drew roughly 76 million unique visitors in August, according to Comscore, and the network generated 287 million YouTube views that month, per Emplifi data cited by Fox. Wallace said Nielsen remains important for advertisers but that “there’s obviously some failings when you’re just relying on Nielsen” and “there’s not one overall number anymore that you can use.”

Reece Peck, an associate professor at the College of Staten Island and author of “Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class,” argued that Fox’s audience loyalty was never purely about a TV channel. “It was social and cultural identification, and that identity can travel across platforms,” he told TheWrap. But he cautioned that digital media also lowers barriers for independent creators, and Fox faces “the risk of institutional inertia.”

The central question, according to the report, is whether Fox’s relationship with its audience belongs to the television channel itself or can follow consumers wherever they go. Wallace expects Fox News Channel to remain the centerpiece a decade from now, even as platforms emerge that the company hasn’t yet imagined. Fox’s challenge, 30 years in, is no longer persuading viewers to find a new cable news network — it is keeping that relationship intact no matter where the audience moves.

• cable
• Fox Nation
• Fox News
• Fox One
• Fox Weather
• streaming