Fox News is scrambling to stay financially afloat after posting record losses in the wake of the landmark $787 million Dominion Voting Systems settlement.
Lachlan Murdoch, Spawn of Rupert, admitted on a call to investors and analysts that the judge’s pretrial rulings against Fox News “severely limited our defense at trial,” which led to the decision to settle the defamation case.
The disinfotainment network has swung to a net loss of $50 million in its first quarter, a marked decline from the $290 million earned this time last year.
Lachlan spun the loss by telling investors the settlement was “a decision clearly in the best interest of the company and its shareholders.”
But that’s a hard sell, considering Fox also suffered an estimated $800 million loss in market value after firing its biggest ratings cash cow, Tucker Carlson.
After Carlson’s firing was announced, shares of Fox dropped to a low of $29.27 on April 24th, a decline of 5.2% from the week before.
You love to see it.
Despite axing Tuckums — for which he offered no explanation — Lachlan Murdoch told investors that their money was still well spent on lying to the American people.
The settlement with Dominion — which revealed plenty of bombshell revelations about Fox’s paid bad actors — “in no way alters Fox’s commitment to the highest journalistic standards across our networks or our passion for unabashedly reporting the news of the day,” Murdoch said on the call. The Washington Post reports:
“There’s no change to our programming strategy at Fox News. It’s obviously a successful strategy, and as always, we are adjusting our programming and our lineup, and that’s what we continue to do.”
One “adjustment” thus far: Trump hype machine and former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh “Binders Full of Lies” McEnany is currently a placeholder in Tucker’s old spot.
Fox News is also facing a second suit from Smartmatic, which has already indicated there will be no settlement for them.
Lyin’ Lachlan put the typical Murdoch spin on that, calling Smartmatic’s lawsuit “a fundamentally different case” than the Dominion litigation, claiming “our full complement of First Amendment defenses remain.”
Translated from Trumpy to English: “We’re screwed!”
Twitter was enjoying the very real schadenfreude on Tuesday between dragging Tucker and learning about the Fox News financial failure.
Lachlan Murdoch is not backing down from the now-rejected argument that what Fox News did in airing false election conspiracy theories was just following the news.
— Sarah Ellison (@sarahellison) May 9, 2023
Tucker Carlson seeing much lower public interest in wake of Fox News exit pic.twitter.com/BRp8wtHUgA
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) May 9, 2023
Meanwhile, Fox News' Kayleigh McEnany just blamed the Allen, TX shooting on mental health (no mention of the Nazi tattoos).
Then her guest credited the mass murder to "a lack of faith, family, and formation" (also no mention of the Nazi tattoos): https://t.co/1jhZths2Fq pic.twitter.com/nRXvYljzqi
— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) May 9, 2023
Judge David Cohen has sided with Smartmatic in its $2.7 billion lawsuit against the right-wing network. Fox News must provide additional material about Rupert Murdoch, & Lachlan Murdoch. Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson & Laura Ingraham lied to their viewers about the 2020 election. pic.twitter.com/3US2MIBt68
— Tony – Resistance (@TonyHussein4) May 6, 2023
*THIS IS AN OPINION COLUMN THAT SOLELY REPRESENTS THE OPINIONS OF TARA DUBLIN. HOORAY FOR THE FREE PRESS!*
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