• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 4 hours ago

It’s hard to know where modern TV/streaming news channels are heading to reach new news viewers -- and keep TV advertising clients happy.

But it seems Fox News Channel may have its limits, according to reports.

Maria Bartiromo’s departure from Fox News seems fairly clear -- although it was short on details. There was just a terse Fox release thanking her for 12-1/2 years of service.

Was she fired? In reports, her attorney Bryan Freedman insists she wasn’t.

But there is a backstory, according to multiple reports, that Bartiromo slipped a Fox Corp. internal document to the White House.

The alleged note, from Fox News senior executives to its Fox News editors/reporters, said it would limit coverage of a possible story, pushed by the White House, that China was responsible for 2020 Presidential election interference.

Or perhaps China had nothing to do with any of that -- because there are no facts or evidence that any of that is true.

One may remember that in 2023, Fox paid a $787.5 million settlement to resolve a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems for airing false conspiracy theories.

This stemmed from Fox News content -- from on-air program hosts -- claiming Dominion's voting machines were used to rig the 2020 presidential election and switch votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

Let’s look at this from the perspective of advertising spend.

Estimates from iSpot point out that advertising revenue for Bartiromo’s Fox Corp. news platforms (Fox News Channel and Fox Business) -- “Mornings with Maria” (Fox News Channel) and “Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street” and “Sunday Morning Futures” -- reveal some consistency.

For her shows on Fox News Channel, iSpot says its spend share of voice (ad spend) was around 0.55% to 0.65% over the last few years.

Last year, ad spend on her Fox News Channel-hosted shows took in an estimated total of $6.1 million, with $3.7 million on Fox Business, compared to the previous year when it amounted to $6.9 million for Fox News Channel and $5.3 million for Fox Business.

What does this mean going forward?

In another report, according to the ‘Naughty But Nice” Substack newsletter, Bartiromo has been talking to Bari Weiss, editor in chief of CBS News -- possibly about a new on-air position. So Weiss must believe this is good news for the business and the editorial health of CBS News.

TV news brands are fairly hardened now when it comes to edgy news issues.

That said, it has become much more difficult to let “opinions” float around on a network that are not based on much -- like, you know, the facts. And you can factor in the word “conspiracy” here whenever you like.

Fox Corp., like many other big media companies, adjusts financially with business strategy to what is thrown their way. All news organizations have limits and qualifiers for what is news.

More than that, a media company is always concerned about particular weak business outcomes. Ultimately, in this marketplace, who really wants to rerun?