Seven out of nine TV news networks are seeing a decrease in trust among their viewers since February, according to a new Brand Keys survey.
The only network of the nine that saw an increase in trust among the viewers was Fox News.
According to the survey released on Monday, trust for the network increased from 86% to 89%.
Meanwhile, trust among MSNBC viewers fell from 93% to 90%. And trust among CNN viewers fell to 87% from 92%.
Trust among ABC News viewers stayed the same at 88%.
Post-COVID 'normalcy' hammers TV network news trust, Biden's too @BrandKeysNY https://t.co/wyP1gInGDd @mp_joemandese pic.twitter.com/cWSujXQdNd
— MediaPost (@MediaPost) August 9, 2021
The survey used a variety of factors to describe trust, including “fair presentation of important content, with accuracy, clarity, and timeliness next contributing to viewer trust evaluations.”
Robert Passikoff, Brand Keys founder and president, said, “We believe as people returned to a semblance of pre-COVID normalcy, viewers have quite literally ‘tuned out’ the news.”
The survey asked 3,975 people to rate the networks that they watch frequently.
In February, Fox’s trust level fell for the first time since 2018. But it was still higher than that of CBS, Bloomberg, and NBC.
Passikoff said there is a correlation between trust in networks and viewership.
Along with seeing an increase in trust, Fox News was the highest-rated in July. Meanwhile, its competitors saw a decrease in viewership.
According to Forbes, “Fox News Channel easily won the cable news ratings race for July, finishing first in prime time and total day ratings—and taking four of the top five most-watched shows for the month, including Tucker Carlson Tonight, which was the top-rated prime time show with a total audience of more than 3 million viewers.”
USA Today also notes that for the first half of 2021, Fox News had the most viewers during daytime and prime time hours.