Fox News is selling data centers as good news. The network tailed president Donald Trump in embracing the AI industry’s narrative, even as viewers reportedly fled and ratings fell ahead of the US midterms.
An analysis by Media Matters for America found that Fox News coverage presenting data centers in a positive light rose 420 percent over the past two months. The shift followed an August 18 memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee that warned party insiders and top corporate executives that opposition to data centers posed a major challenge to Republican victory in the upcoming midterms.
Fox News then moved from background noise to full campaign messaging. The network made 203 pro-data-center claims between August 19 and September 2, compared with 39 between August 5 and August 18.
The coverage also promoted claims about “far-left activists” and Chinese government propaganda, framing opposition to data centers as the work of a political boogeyman rather than a local backlash. That approach may satisfy the people writing the memo, but viewers have not shown the same enthusiasm.
The ratings decline cuts across key audiences
Recent Nielsen data cited by Status shows Fox News viewership plunged 27 percent across October to an average of 1.1 million total viewers. Viewership across July, August, and September had already shriveled by 16 percent compared with the previous three months, while viewers aged 24 to 54 fell 24 percent over that period.
October 2026 is on track to become Fox News’ lowest-rated month since December 2023. Preliminary Nielsen ratings put the network at 1.1 million total viewers for the month, while the advertiser-coveted 25-54 demographic averaged only 98,000 viewers — its lowest level in 25 years.
Compared with October last year, total viewership dropped 27 percent and the 25-54 audience decreased 32 percent. Fox News still reaches more viewers than every other cable network, including ESPN, and it averages 3.8 billion YouTube views per year, so this is not a collapse into irrelevance. It is a warning that even a dominant network can lose the room.
The rest of the cable field offers little comfort. MS NOW averages about 588,000 viewers a day, up 16 percent from this time last year, while CNN posted a 3 percent increase over the past year. Fox remains far ahead, but the direction of travel is less flattering than the raw lead.
Data centers have become a political liability
The backlash is not confined to one party. France 24 reported that voters from Ohio to Illinois will decide dozens of local measures on Tuesday, as opposition to the giant buildings powering AI crosses party lines; Reuters counted at least 41 measures across 38 local jurisdictions to delay, ban, or regulate data centers.
Ohio accounts for 21 of those measures, with Democrats and Republicans joining forces against the projects. A Gallup poll in May found that seven in ten Americans oppose a data center being built in their area, and a later poll ranked the issue ahead of climate change as an important concern for residents in the upcoming midterm election.
Reports from Red Oak, Texas, and other communities describe voters united in trying to stop AI data-center construction, despite the country’s wider political divisions. NPR summarized the mood with a blunt pairing: momentum for Democratic candidates and bipartisan distaste for data centers.
Fox viewers have noticed the disconnect. One YouTube commenter wrote, “Just in case there were any dummies who thought Fox News cares what voters want,” while another said, “They’ll always protect corporate interests over conservative interests and (perhaps) even over protecting Trump in certain cases.”
Another angry viewer wrote, “For the first time I’m going to say, FOX is GREEDY,” followed by a complaint that people who claim to believe in God are “failing on following his word.” The comments appeared under a Fox and Friends segment, where audience frustration collided with the network’s preferred storyline.
Trump has also grown sour on the conservative network. On Truth Social, he criticized Fox News for interviewing Democratic candidates Abdul El-Sayed and Charles Booker, writing, “FoxNews is spending far too much time putting on the OPPONENTS of Republican Party Candidates, people that love our Country, and have Great Policies and Ideas,” before accusing the network of “trying too hard to be Politically Correct.”
He urged viewers to watch the Right Side Broadcast Network instead and has complained when Fox cuts coverage of his campaign rallies. Fox News is now caught between corporate enthusiasm for AI infrastructure, Republican pressure to defend data centers, and viewers who may not want either delivered as prime-time wisdom.
The network still has scale. But the ratings suggest scale is not the same as loyalty — and voters appear less interested in protecting server farms than the people selling them.
Based on
- Fox News Takes Massive Ratings Hit As It Triples Down on Pro-Data Center Coverage — futurism.com
- Fox News sees dramatic drop in viewership as Trump approval tumbles ahead of midterms | The Independent — independent.co.uk
- Data centres on the ballot: could the AI infrastructure shape US midterms? – Tech 24 – France 24 — france24.com
- AI data centre concerns in Texas ahead of U.S. midterm elections | Watch News Videos Online — globalnews.ca
- Politics chat: Data centers are on everyone’s minds going into Election Day : NPR — npr.org
