Unverifiable: The Claim That FOX News Topped a 2020 Brand Loyalty Report Can't Be Confirmed
“According to a 2020 Brand Keys Consumer Loyalty Engagement Index report, FOX News is the top brand in the country for morning and evening news coverage”
The argument in brief
A widely shared claim states that the 2020 Brand Keys Consumer Loyalty Engagement Index ranked FOX News as the top brand in the country for morning and evening news coverage. The verdict is unverifiable — the Brand Keys report is proprietary and not publicly accessible, so the specific ranking cannot be confirmed or denied. While FOX News did lead cable news in viewership that year, viewership and brand loyalty are different things entirely.
Why it spread
FOX News viewers are a deeply loyal audience who understandably want external validation that their preferred network is respected and dominant. A claim backed by a named research firm feels like proof, not opinion. At the same time, critics share it to argue against it — and both reactions push the claim further without anyone stopping to ask whether the underlying report is actually readable by the public.
The claim is straightforward: a respected brand research firm called Brand Keys ranked FOX News as America's top brand for morning and evening news coverage in its 2020 Consumer Loyalty Engagement Index. It sounds authoritative. It has a real company's name attached. But here's the problem — no one outside Brand Keys can actually check it.
Brand Keys is a legitimate firm that publishes a real annual loyalty index. FOX News has appeared as a strong performer in their news category in various years, and Brand Keys has issued press releases through PR Newswire referencing these findings. So the claim isn't invented from thin air. But the full 2020 report is proprietary — meaning it's sold, not shared publicly — and the specific framing of FOX News as 'top brand in the country for morning and evening news' cannot be found in any independently accessible document.
What we can verify is different. Nielsen Media Research confirmed that FOX News was the most-watched cable news network in 2020, both in primetime and across the full day. And Pew Research Center found that FOX News had a notably loyal audience, especially among conservatives. Those findings are real. But high viewership and high brand loyalty scores are not the same metric, and neither one confirms the specific Brand Keys claim being made.
The honest answer here is: this claim might be true. Brand Keys may well have ranked FOX News at the top in 2020. But because the report isn't public, there's no way to check the exact wording, the methodology, or whether 'morning and evening news' was even a distinct category. A confidence level of roughly 30 percent is about as far as the evidence takes us.
This kind of claim spreads easily because it wraps a partisan point — FOX News is the best — inside the language of neutral, third-party research. When you see a specific report name and year attached to a bold ranking, always ask: can I read that report myself? If the answer is no, treat the claim as unconfirmed, no matter which network it favors.
Sources
- Brand Keys Official Website
Brand Keys publishes an annual Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, but the specific 2020 report claiming FOX News as the top brand for morning and evening news coverage is not publicly accessible for independent verification of its exact rankings and methodology.
- Nielsen Media Research
Nielsen ratings data from 2020 showed FOX News was indeed the most-watched cable news network in primetime and total day viewership, which could lend partial credibility to a loyalty/engagement ranking, though viewership and brand loyalty are distinct metrics.
- Pew Research Center - News Media Habits
Pew Research found that FOX News had a highly loyal and engaged audience base, particularly among conservatives, which could support high scores on a loyalty engagement index, though the specific Brand Keys claim cannot be independently confirmed.
- PR Newswire / Brand Keys Press Releases
Brand Keys has issued press releases about their loyalty index findings, and FOX News has been cited in some years as a top performer in news categories, but the precise framing of 'top brand in the country for morning and evening news coverage' from a 2020 report cannot be fully verified from publicly available documents.
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