Fox

Los Angeles Times NFL writer Sam Farmer examines the matchups and makes his predictions for Week 10 of the NFL season.

All lines and over/under numbers are according to FanDuel Sportsbook.

Last week, Farmer posted an 15-0 record. Through the first nine weeks of the season, he is 89-47 (.654).

Using point spreads with the scores Farmer predicted, his record against the spread in Week 9 would have been 12-3 (.800). For the season, his record against the spread is 65-71 (.478).

All times are Pacific and TV reflects broadcasts in the Los Angeles area. The Bears, Broncos, Buccaneers and Eagles are off this week.

Fox Corporation has completed its $22 billion acquisition of Roku, transforming the Murdoch family’s company into a major player in the streaming video business.

The deal closed Friday, months ahead of the companies’ original target of the first half of 2027.

The deal combines Fox’s news, sports and broadcast channels with the San Jose-based streaming platform, which reaches 100 million households globally. The $22 billion valuation includes debt.

Roku, founded in 2002, provides Fox with a direct line to consumer households at a time when the traditional pay-TV universe continues its slow decline as viewers move away from cable and satellite services to video streaming. Fox already owns the free ad-supported streaming service Tubi, which turned profitable last year.

Fox Corp. expects to see around $400 million in cost reductions within two years of the Roku acquisition.

While Roku provides Fox with an opportunity to be more aggressive in marketing its channels, Fox has pledged that the platform will remain open to distributing content from competitors.

“Beginning today, our top priority for the combined company is to continue to relentlessly serve audiences and partners, while reinforcing the openness and choice that is the essence of the Roku platform,” Fox Executive Chair and Chief Executive Lachlan Murdoch said in a statement. “Our shared entrepreneurial passion and clear conviction toward building the future together with our new Roku colleagues gives us great confidence in the opportunities ahead of us.”

Roku founder Anthony Wood will join the Fox board of directors. He will also serve as co-chair of Fox Digital Platforms, the newly formed division that includes Roku, Tubi, the direct-to-consumer streaming service Fox One and Red Seat Ventures, which provides sales and technical support to podcasters. Paul Cheesbrough, who oversaw Tubi for Fox, will become co-chair and chief executive of the division.

Under the terms of the merger agreement, Roku stockholders are entitled to receive $95.30 in cash and 0.9799 shares of Fox Class A common stock for each share of Roku Class A and Roku Class B common stock they owned immediately prior to closing. As a result of the transaction, Fox stockholders own around 74% of the outstanding shares of Fox common stock and former Roku stockholders own approximately 26%.

Roku shares stopped trading on the Nasdaq Friday.

Fox (FOXA) (FOX) announced it completed its $22 billion purchase of Roku Inc. (ROKU).

Roku founder Anthony Wood will join the FOX board. He will also serve as Co-Chair, FOX Digital Platforms, the newly formed division that includes Roku, Tubi, FOX One, Red Seat Ventures, and other

WASHINGTON — As the scale of the Republican Party’s losses came into focus late Tuesday, President Trump watched from the White House and went looking for someone to blame.

First it was Fox News. Just before midnight, with Democrats projected to seize control of the House, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the network “bears responsibility for these losses by constantly and consistently putting on the Dumocrat opposition, and worse.” Then it was the fact that he had not been on the ballot, otherwise, he said, “we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!”

Minutes later, Trump was on the phone with the same network he had just accused of sabotaging his party. And over a 22-minute interview, conducted before the Senate had been called for Democrats, his tone shifted from grievance to something closer to acceptance, though never to the idea that the election results were a rebuke on his administration.

“Congratulations to the Democrats. They did a good job. They’ve been looking for this one for 11 years and they finally got it,” the president said. “But I don’t view it as a hit on me. I think we’ve had the greatest two years in the history of the president in terms of the economy, in terms of all the things that we’ve done.”

Reflecting on the losses, Trump largely put the onus on the candidates, some of whom he said he only endorsed for the good of the party.

“I was trying to get people that, frankly, let’s say that I didn’t get along with. But for the purposes of the party I went along with it,” he said.

Trump said his supporters “didn’t like the candidates,” and that some of the nominees had failed to “inspire” the MAGA base, which over a span of 30 days he tried to engage in campaign rallies in Republican strongholds, including South Carolina, Texas and Kansas, where Democrats pulled off upsets against the GOP candidates.

As Trump reflected on the election results, he offered a narrow acknowledgment that his war with Iran has played a role, saying voters “probably don’t agree with the short-term consequences” such as higher gas prices.

“It’s a short-term problem but for long term-gain,” he said, and then argued that history would judge his actions in the Middle East as “much more important than this evening.”

Looking ahead to what the election results mean for the last two years of his presidency with Democrats in control, Trump said he is willing to work with them — but that he will not hesitate to use the power of the veto.

“I have the power of veto, one of the strongest powers that a president has and they’ll send over things that are insane and I will veto them,” he said.”After a couple of months of vetoes they will call, and they’ll say, how do we get this stuff done? And we’ll work together.”

Trump said he has “a lot of friends who are Democrats.” He said he talked to five Democrats – two senators and three representatives – on Tuesday night and that three others were about to call him.

In the end, Trump said Democrats “fought hard” and did a “good job.”

As President Trump tries to convince voters to maintain the Republican majority in the House and Senate ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections, some Fox News viewers are taking a break.

That’s what Lachlan Murdoch, executive chairman and chief executive of Fox Corporation, believes is behind the steep October ratings drop for the conservative leaning cable news channel. Fox News, which often draws more viewers in prime time than one or more of the broadcast networks, saw its October audience levels drop 28% compared to a year ago, according to Nielsen. Its total day audience among viewers ages 25 to 54 fell to 98,000, the lowest monthly level in 25 years.

“The business is in incredibly good shape and we’re very proud of the team,” Murdoch told analysts Monday on the company’s quarterly earnings call. “What we are seeing, though, is some viewer fatigue where our viewers have gone through some incredible news cycles the last few years.”

Murdoch noted that Fox News suffers in a year-to-year comparison with a 2025 news cycle that included President Trump’s inauguration, and the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, which spiked the network’s ratings in the fall last year.

Murdoch also said Fox News viewers are not switching to MS NOW or CNN and are instead watching slightly less television overall. But both of those networks gained viewers in October, which suggests the fatigue is not being felt across all of cable news.

Even with the ratings decline, Fox News says it is on pace for its highest-rated midterm year in total day viewers. The network’s total day average was 1.1 million viewers in October, down from 1.5 million a year earlier.

Politically minded viewers tuning out when their side is struggling has happened at the other end of the political spectrum. Progressive-leaning MS NOW, formerly known as MSNBC, saw its ratings drop sharply in the months following Trump’s victory over then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election that returned him to the White House.

The Fox News ratings slide had no impact on the parent company’s earnings, which were strong in its fiscal first quarter thanks to the record-setting audience levels for the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup and robust political ad sales on its TV stations. Fox News’ audience also declined during that quarter, and the company reported lower digital news advertising revenue.

Fox News has slightly more than a 50% share of the combined audience for the three major cable news channels and remains the dominant leader over competitors CNN and MS NOW, both of which gained viewers last month. Fox News has also broadened its base of advertisers in recent years and benefits from negotiated increases in revenue from cable and satellite providers that carry the channel.

Murdoch said Fox News saw a similar ratings dip during the 2006 midterm campaign when then-President George W. Bush was in his second term. (Republican viewers were also turned off by the Bush administration’s botched handling of Hurricane Katrina.)

Murdoch did not cite the more recent example of late 2020, when the audience tuned out of Fox News as they were unhappy over the results of the 2020 election and the network’s coverage of them, including its call of Arizona for Joe Biden. Trump and his most ardent supporters insisted he won and that the election was rife with voter fraud. (While Fox News journalists were consistent in reporting that Joe Biden won the election, the network repeatedly aired Trump’s false claims of fraud, leading to a defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems, that was settled for $787 million in 2023.)

Fox News ratings rebounded in early 2021. The network also bounced back from a ratings dip that followed the ousting of Tucker Carlson in April 2023, when he was the most-watched prime time personality on the network.

In the current election cycle, Fox News opinion hosts continue to deliver strong support for Trump. But Trump has complained that the network is not giving enough coverage to his rallies.

The competitiveness of the midterm elections has the network devoting more time to the poll numbers that indicate the Democrats will have a strong night on Tuesday, largely due to voter unhappiness over Trump’s handling of the economy and the war with Iran.

Trump has complained publicly about Fox News giving attention to Democratic candidates, even though the network has always welcomed the party’s members to appear on its programs. Candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, along with the left wing organization’s leaders, have been willing to engage with its anchors even as Fox News opinion hosts paint them as dangerous radicals.

But Fox News is also likely feeling the impact of the dwindling number of homes with subscriptions to pay TV, as consumers continue to abandon cable and satellite services for streaming, although CNN and MS NOW gained viewers despite the same trend. Fox has tried to recoup some of those cord-cutters through its direct-to-consumer subscription streaming service Fox One.

Murdoch touted the growth of Fox One and said it is fulfilling its mission of signing on consumers who no longer have pay TV, but the company has not revealed subscription numbers.

Murdoch touted the growth of Fox One and said it is fulfilling its mission of signing on consumers who no longer have pay TV, but the company has not revealed subscription numbers.

When NBC’s production team came to meet with Lincoln Riley, ahead of a broadcast earlier this month, the USC football coach greeted the group like old friends.

“Look,” Riley joked, “the Trojan Network is back.”

He certainly should be familiar with the group by now, given that this week’s matchup with No. 2 Ohio State marks the sixth time in nine games that USC will be featured on NBC. That’s already tied for the most any one network has aired a Big Ten team since 2024, when the conference expanded to 18 teams.

“We certainly feel like we’re the voice of the Trojans at the moment,” Noah Eagle, NBC’s lead play-by-play announcer, told The Times prior to USC’s loss to Wisconsin last week.

It’s certainly an ironic match, considering NBC’s longtime affiliation with the Trojans’ bitter rival, Notre Dame. But going all-in on the Cardinal and Gold wasn’t necessarily the network’s plan going into the season, according to Justin Byczek, NBC’s executive vice president of programming and rights management. It just worked out that way.

“It’s effectively a draft, and we’re trying to look at different weeks and prioritize,” Byczek said. “One of the first things that jumped out at us was how important that Oregon game is going to be. So that was something that we had in our back pocket going into the draft.”

When the three networks divided up the Big Ten’s TV games last spring, Byczek said NBC also zeroed in on that game, as well as USC’s matchups with Ohio State and Penn State, knowing both would fit well featured in prime time.

Just by virtue of its geography and its brand, USC makes for a natural fit in NBC’s prime time slot (7:30/4:30 p.m. ET/PT), similar to how FOX’s Big Noon Saturday regularly features Ohio State in its early window.

Those prime-time matchups featuring the Trojans, though, have lagged a bit behind other top teams from the Big Ten and SEC. USC’s matchup with Oregon drew the largest audience of its season to date, with 5 million viewers on NBC and Peacock. That’s the only time this season that a USC game has finished in the top five of the week’s most viewed games, according to Nielsen data.

That’s a conference-wide issue. The Big Ten has only had the week’s most-watched game twice this season, once on CBS (Ohio State-Iowa in Week 5) and another time on Fox (Ohio State-Indiana, Week 7). Otherwise, ABC has dominated, with upwards of 10 million tuning in most weeks to the network’s prime-time game.

So, in order to compete with ABC in prime time, NBC is betting on Lincoln Riley and the Trojans as its West Coast anchor.

“Because they’re intriguing — not only in Los Angeles, but nationally,” Eagle said. “College football fans want to see if they can get over the hump. Can Lincoln Riley get them there?”

That question will no doubt come up on the broadcast this week. And with three Big Ten games still left after that, you can bet it won’t be the last time we hear it asked on NBC.