MS NOW Audiences Keep Growing as Midterms Near, Versant Says
Versant Media's chief executive says MS NOW is not losing viewers, even as the midterm elections approach. Mark Lazarus made the point on the company's third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday, 3 November 2026, saying the news channel is not seeing "audience fatigue", meaning viewers tiring of the coverage.
Lazarus described MS NOW and CNBC audiences as active, vibrant and growing. He credited the quality of the programming, the on-air voices and viewers' trust in the brands and the people on them. He also said some viewers were leaving other channels to try MS NOW and were spending more time with it.
Versant's figures give some numbers behind that picture. MS NOW was the second-most-watched cable network in the third quarter, with double-digit viewing growth as election coverage picked up. September was the 11th straight month of audience growth for the channel. The network was also the No. 1 news organisation on YouTube during the quarter, and it generated more than 105 million podcast downloads so far this year.
Lazarus called Election Day "the Super Bowl" for the news organisation. He said Versant expects MS NOW's audience to keep growing through the vote.
The company's money side was mixed. Revenue for the quarter fell 4% from a year earlier, to $1.59 billion, though that still beat Wall Street's forecast. Earnings per share came in at 34 cents, also above estimates. Advertising revenue dipped 5% year on year, which Versant put down to a tough comparison with the golf Ryder Cup, held the year before.
Versant also said 75% of its video subscriber base is now under contract into 2028 and beyond, after several carriage deals. A carriage deal is the agreement that puts a channel on a cable or satellite provider's packages, so the deals matter for how many homes can receive the channels at all.
For context, Versant was spun off from Comcast in January and owns former NBCUniversal cable networks along with digital properties such as the ticketing and movie-listings site Fandango. Earlier this year, Lazarus announced plans for an MS NOW extension and a CNBC subscription service.
Rival Fox News saw a different picture. Fox Corp chief executive Lachlan Murdoch said on Monday that viewer fatigue was hurting Fox News ratings. Ratings measure how many people are watching at a given time, so the two companies are describing the same election season in very different terms.
For the people who work on these channels, the numbers mean steady newsroom schedules heading into a busy stretch. Election nights are long, and they need reporters, producers and editors on shift for hours at a time. Versant says it expects that demand to rise as the vote gets closer.
