Advertisers do not purchase Television based on where an advertiser stands in ratings compared to its competitors. It’s based on Cost Per Thousand Viewers (CPM). Many advertisers, especially the major ones, get a CPM guarantee. Based on the fewer people watching a show, the CPM is higher than guaranteed, like Fox primetime. In those cases, the network has to give advertisers free commercials. The number of TV commercials is limited because they are on time. As there is a finite amount of time, i.e., there will always be 60 minutes per hour. Since Fox can only run a certain amount of commercials during that finite amount of time, every free commercial takes the place of a paid one. Thus Fox will lose that income EVERY NIGHT, but hey, they are still the number one network compared to other networks.

Some of those one million missing viewers have gone to Newsmax, and as expected, none have gone to CNN or MSNBC.