Jesse Watters And Steve Doocy On 30 Years Of Fox News

From also-ran to ratings powerhouse

Of course, as Doocy remembers, there were very few people watching Fox News when it launched. The new network was only available on cable systems serving between 10 and 17 million homes, compared to CNN’s distribution to 71 million homes across cable and satellite TV. “It was like being in the witness protection program,” Doocy joked.

In its first full year, 1997, Fox News averaged 23,000 total-day viewers and 37,000 in primetime. CNN, which was experiencing a ratings slump in 1997, was still drawing nearly 800,000 households in prime time in 1997. By 2025, Fox News had passed CNN and claimed number one, averaging 1.69 million total-day viewers and 2.65 million in primetime, according to ratings data compiled by Nielsen.

So far in 2026, Fox is averaging 1.53 million total-day viewers and 2.38 million in primetime, compared with 647,000 and 1.04 million for MS NOW, and 500,000 and 706,000 for CNN. The audience shift is striking: in 1997, Fox represented just 5% of the combined audience for Fox, CNN and MSNBC. Today, FNC seems untouchable, owning 57% of total-day and 58% of prime time viewing.

And while overall viewership in cable and broadcast news is declining, Doocy says Fox News isn’t going anywhere. “We’re content creators,” he told me. “We are influencers for 30 years. Are we going to be there in another 30 years? You’re damn right, we are.”

From the Fox News ‘basement’ to prime time star

Jesse Watters wasn’t there for the launch of Fox News, but he remembers his first days at Fox, when he toiled anonymously in the “basement” of FNC headquarters in New York. “I wasn’t talent like Doocy,” he joked. “You know, I didn’t come in on air like a big shot. I started in the basement, in the newsroom–underground, and there were mice.”

Watters, whose career started taking off when he joined the staff at the network’s top-rated The O’Reilly Factor, said he learned a lot, but saved money by eating at a nearby Wendy’s every day. “I was just making minimum wage and didn’t have any health insurance, and slowly they realized I was as talented as Steve Doocy, if not more talented, and eventually they gave me a show.”

He credited former Fox host Bill O’Reilly with shaping his approach to television–learning the skills he puts to work on his own show every night. “I learned almost everything from Bill,” Watters told me. “I took a lot of what (O’Reilly) did successfully and kind of put my own spin on it. And I was a producer too, so you know how to produce television. It’s not just get up there and yap yap yap like Fox and Friends, you know we we have to put the right video on. We have to have the right guest, say the right thing, and get to the commercial break.”

Watch Mark Joyella’s full interview with Jesse Watters and Steve Doocy:

Doocy described Fox’s early approach as a departure from what he considered a more restrained style of TV news. Roger Ailes, the network’s chairman and CEO, hand-picked the staff and encouraged hosts to present both sides of a story, but also not to be afraid to offer their opinions, while also being personable. “Take the news seriously, but you don’t have to take yourself so seriously,” Doocy recalled being told.

Expanding into digital and streaming–and another 30 years

One of the hallmarks of Fox News Channel’s success has been its remarkable consistency: the look and style of the network today is very much like that of three decades ago. And while some of the network’s most successful hosts–O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson–have left, their replacements, like Watters, have carried on–with the loyal Fox News viewers sticking around.

ForbesFox News Tops ABC, NBC And CBS As The Highest-Rated Network This SummerBy Mark Joyella

In recent months, the network’s ratings power has extended beyond cable news, with a weekday prime time audience of 2.6 million viewers over the summer, beating out the broadcast networks CBS, ABC and NBC and claiming–for a time–the title of most-watched network in all of television, two summers in a row.

In the cable news race, neither CNN nor MS NOW has found a way to knock Fox News off its perch, with FNC remaining number one for 24 consecutive years–and the top-rated network in all of cable TV for 10 years.

As television viewership industry-wide grows ever more fragmented, Fox News continues to invest in a multi-platform ecosystem that today draws 180 million monthly unique visitors and 13.2 billion total views–and $500 million in non-television revenue in 2025.

“The brand is powerful, and it’s about distribution,” Watters said. If you have distribution digitally or on your phone, you know you’re going to compete in a different space right now…the brass is always looking ahead, and you know you’ve got these apps now, and Fox Nation, Fox One, you bundle it…the content is is what’s king, and and the company’s hired so many talented people and has such a great relationship with the country.”

“The reason why we’ve only been growing is because we’ve earned the audience’s trust,” Watters told me. “Some of these other networks…they’ve lost it, and so we’ve only gained it. And they’ll never be able to take that away from us. So whatever happens in the future in the industry, we’ll always have that, no matter where you see us.”

Watters says the marching orders the Fox News bosses gave Steve Doocy on day one–be fair, but don’t be afraid to tell viewers what you think–is still the driving philosophy today, and viewers keep coming back night after night. “It’s the message, and it’s the way we communicate, and we speak from the heart, and you really know where we stand on an issue,” he said.

“It’s not wishy washy, you know. We’re not trying to appease people. We’re not trying to hide. We’re kind of in your face. We’re saying this is what’s going on. This is why this is going on. That’s bad. This is good, and people want that. They want clarity, and they want strength, and they respond to that in their hearts. And so that’s a big difference between us and the others. That we know who we are, and we’re never going to change, and that’s kind of what Fox is at its core.”