What percentage of Fox News viewers are aged 65 and older in 2023 2024?

Executive summary — short answer to the question

Three recent, public claims paint a consistent picture that Fox News’ audience skews substantially older, but none of the provided sources give a single, definitive percentage of Fox News viewers who are aged 65 and older. A March–August 2025 Pew analysis notes a median viewer age in the mid-50s (suggesting a sizable older cohort) ^[1], a November 2024 Pew poll reports 22% of adults 65+ name Fox News as their main news source (which is a share of that age group, not the share of Fox viewers who are 65+) ^[2], and a May 2024 Wall Street Journal piece reports a median viewer age of 69 in another measurement, implying heavy concentration among 65+ viewers ^[3]. None of these items directly state the percentage of all Fox viewers who are 65+, so the precise figure for 2023–2024 remains unreported in the supplied materials.

1. The contradictory medians that make headlines — why numbers diverge

Two different median-age claims appear in the documentation: a median age of 55 reported by Pew in a broader 2025 audience-profile study ^[1] and a median age of 69 reported by the Wall Street Journal in May 2024 ^[3]. These medians cannot both represent the exact same population and timeframe without methodological differences; median age depends strongly on survey sampling frame, weighting decisions, question wording, and the time window covered. The Pew 2025 write-up frames results across 30 news sources and emphasizes TV news habits among seniors ^[1], while the WSJ piece focuses on TV network audiences and executive strategy in 2024 ^[3]. Different studies, even one year apart, can produce medians that point to the same qualitative conclusion — an older audience — while producing quantitatively different central tendencies ^{[1] [3]}.

2. A share-of-age-group metric versus a share-of-audience metric — the important distinction

The November 2024 Pew poll cited reports that 22% of adults aged 65 and older named Fox News as their main news source ^[2]. That figure describes what proportion of the 65+ population prefers Fox News, not the proportion of Fox News viewers who are 65+. Observers frequently conflate those two complementary but distinct statistics. If 22% of seniors primarily use Fox, that can coexist with a variety of audience compositions for Fox: Fox could be mostly older viewers, or it could have a mixed base with many younger viewers who use other main sources. The supplied materials do not provide the inverse metric — what percent of all Fox viewers are 65+ — which is the user’s original question ^[2].

3. What the medians imply about the likely share of 65+ viewers

Both median estimates imply that a substantial portion of the Fox audience is older, because a median above 55 skews the distribution toward older ages. The WSJ median of 69 ^[3] suggests that at least half of the audience is 69 or older in that measurement, which would imply a majority of viewers are 65+. The Pew median of 55 ^[1] suggests a large older cohort but not necessarily a majority above 65. Without the original age-band breakdowns or the survey tables referenced but not included, one cannot mathematically convert medians into precise percentages for the 65+ band; the data gaps in the supplied analyses are the limiting factor.

4. Potential sources of measurement bias and why dates matter

Sampling differences, changing viewership patterns across 2023–2025, and how organizations define “Fox News viewers” produce substantial variation. The WSJ analysis is a May 2024 media-industry narrative that may rely on internal cable ratings or proprietary datasets emphasizing linear-TV viewers ^[3]. Pew’s November 2024 and March–August 2025 outputs are survey-based and population-weighted, focusing on self-reported main news sources and audience composition ^{[2] [1]}. These methodological and temporal differences create legitimate divergence without implying error by either party; they reflect different questions and data streams. Analysts should treat the numbers as complementary signals rather than identical estimates.

5. Bottom line and what would be needed to answer the original question precisely

The supplied materials collectively show that Fox News’ audience is older than most competitors and that seniors are disproportionately represented among its viewers, but they do not provide a single, verifiable percentage of Fox viewers aged 65+ for 2023–2024. To answer the question definitively one needs the age-band breakdown of Fox’s audience from a consistent source (for example, Nielsen/Comscore linear+streaming audience tables or the full Pew age-cross-tabulation referenced but not supplied) and a clear definition of “viewer” (regular primetime viewers, main-source respondents, or all viewers). Until those tables are produced, any specific percentage for 65+ remains an inference, not a documented fact ^{[1] [2] [3]}.