With the 2024 presidential election season underway, Fox News Channel anchor and host Harris Faulkner is heating up on the ratings front as the host of two daily shows on the cable news network. 

The 19-year Fox News veteran’s morning news series, The Faulkner Focus, averaged nearly 1.5 million viewers in January. That’s a larger average audience than such broadcast shows as GMA3: What You Need to Know on ABC and CBS’s The Talk tallied during the first week of February, according to Nielsen data provided by Fox News.

Outnumbered — Faulkner’s other daily series, which she co-hosts with Emily Compagno and Kayleigh McEnany — is marking its 10th year on air in 2024. That show features a panel of regular contributors discussing breaking news and issues of the day. 

Faulkner recently spoke to Multichannel News senior content producer R. Thomas Umstead about the upcoming election news cycle and the challenges of competing in a crowded television environment. 

How have you been able to build ratings momentum in a noisy, competitive television news environment? It’s about consistency. When people tune in, they know what they’re going to get. My only goal is to tell the truth and to get the audience to remember some of those words by the way that I deliver it. I don’t want to waste their time and I don’t want them to think that I take them for granted.

How has the cable-news business changed since you’ve been at Fox News? The platforms are all still changing, but when you talk about reaching viewers, especially a young audience, staying relevant is everybody’s goal. You’ve got to be there when news happens …that’s what makes you relevant in this business. Whatever they are doing to consume the information, you have to bring the truth to them and tell it in a memorable way. 

Has the cable news business improved for women in general, and for women of color in particular? The one place I want to see more of us — and this includes Fox by the way — is as content drivers behind the scenes. We need line producers, senior producers and executive producers. We need people who are handling and driving the content behind the scenes. I think we have representation in front of the camera with people of many diverse lanes, and I encourage networks to look at more than skin color and hair texture when it comes to diversity. 

What role will the media serve in the 2024 elections? I do think we have a responsibility to prepare the viewer. The unifying message to me, the nonpolitical, apolitical message to me is to go and to do what my dad fought for — go do your supreme right of freedom and vote. In that sense, that’s our most important job. And the way that you do that is to instill confidence in people that you’re preparing them and that you’re telling them the truth, especially around presidential elections.

What’s left for you to accomplish in the news business? It is an accomplishment when you’re on a team for there to be a measurable way to show them how you’re doing. So while I don’t think it’s the end-all be-all, when we have good news to share about how the show is doing I’m extremely proud. Sometimes the only measurement that we get besides the beautiful comments from viewers that we get to meet in person are the ratings, and that’s of course what our bosses look at. 

Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner will host a special on law enforcement in America on April 27.

The special, Faulkner Focus: Police in America, will look at the state of law enforcement nationwide, including the impact following the guilty verdict of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, the network said.

Also Read: Weekly Cable Ratings: Fox News Continues Ratings Momentum

Guests appearing on the special include former superintendent-in-chief of the Boston Police Department Daniel Linskey, Detroit Police Chief James Craig, Fraternal Order of Police national VP Joe Gamaldi, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL), Maryland Sheriff of Harford County Jeffrey Gahler, sergeant of the Baltimore City School Police Force Clyde Boatwright former Arizona police officer Lindsay Long.

The program will also focus on the Department of Justice’s investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department, the ongoing conversation of defunding the police, police retention rates and morale and spiking violent crime rates within cities across America, according to the network. 

Sunday, Feb. 28, will play host to yet more primetime togetherness with Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner.

Also Read: Faulkner to Host 'Fight for America

The anchor (The Faulkner Focus weekdays at 11 a.m. and Outnumbered at noon) will host America Together With Harris Faulkner: The Shot at 10 p.m. ET, the latest in her series of primetime specials on coping with COVID-19 (the others were America Copes Together and America Learns Together).

"The Shot" will feature a discussion among medical experts with answers to questions about vaccine-related topics, including racial disparities in distribution and how the vaccines are being administered.

Fox News correspondent Casey Stegall will report from Texas on mass vaccination sites.

Also Read: Harris Faulkner Is Working Overtime

One goal of the special is to help debunk myths about vaccines; another is to respond to viewer questions.

Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner and Comcast's Dalila Wilson-Scott, executive VP and chief diversity officer, have been included in Worth's "Groundbreakers 2021: 50 Women Changing the World."

That is a list of the "50 most influential women of our time" as measured by their importance "to accelerating progress and propelling us closer to an equal and just world."

Faulkner was saluted as the only Black woman hosting a cable news show in 2020. "It is a tremendous honor to be included on Worth’s Groundbreaking Women list," she told the magazine. "It takes every voice and idea to pull us through tough times."

Wilson-Scott, who is also president of the Comcast NBCU Foundation, was described as a women who can "do it all."

Both were among women Worth said have "broken down barriers and are changing their industries—and, because of their determination, they’re making a difference for society as a whole."

Fox News on Sunday (July 19) will premiere a new special that will focus on the civil unrest in America.

Harris Faulkner Presents: The Fight for America will be hosted by Outnumbered and Outnumbered Overtime anchor Harris Faulkner, and will spotlight discussions surrounding the national conversation about race in America and the path forward for the country, said network officials. 

Appearing on the special will be Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), former NFL star Herschel Walker, Fraternal Order of Police Vice President Joe Gamaldi and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, as well as Hannity host Sean Hannity and FNC contributors Dr. Alveda King and Gianno Caldwell.

The special will be Faulkner's fourth in-depth town hall special this year, according to the network. 

RELATED: Harris Faulkner is Working Overtime

Fox News Channel has been dominating the cable ratings charts in 2020, and few of the network’s anchors have been more dominant in their time slots than Harris Faulkner, who hosts daily news shows Outnumbered and Outnumbered Overtime from her New Jersey home. The 15-year Fox News veteran’s Outnumbered Overtime, in particular, has outperformed both its broadcast and cable competition in the 1-2 p.m. slot since last July, averaging more than 1.7 million viewers. Faulkner has also hosted several town hall specials over the past few months, focusing on such topics as education and mental health.

Faulkner spoke with Multichannel News about the success of both Outnumbered and Outnumbered Overtime, as well as the challenges of delivering live, daily programming amid the coronavirus pandemic. Here’s an edited transcript.

MCN: Is it harder to do your shows at home than from the Fox News studios?

Harris Faulkner: Right now, it doesn’t matter where you are — you are [at home] with millions of other people and there is no escaping it. I’m constantly on the line with my producers, so there’s really no delineation between home and work.

MCN: Have you experienced technical difficulties at home?

HF: I have never seen technology at work like what’s going on here. We’re capable of doing so much that I’m amazed; I can talk to anyone, anywhere. The viewers also get it — it doesn’t have to be perfect, and that’s a good thing. [Two weeks ago] I was interviewing [House] Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and we were getting into it. I asked my big question but couldn’t hear the answer. At that point I had to make a decision — I had him stand by while we broke for a commercial. We came back and we had fixed it, but to go off the air so suddenly like that was certainly different. It’s been pretty impressive that that’s the only major technical glitch that we’ve had.

MCN: Outnumbered Overtime is dominating its timeslot. What has been the secret sauce of the show’s success?

HF: Part of it is relevance. Before [COVID-19] was a pandemic, we were trying to get our arms around this and I tried to be relevant from the get-go. I have always pitched to the audience breaking news and being straight with people with a smile — there’s no reason why you have to be caustic and unapproachable. I do think that people know I won’t tolerate misinformation or stuff that they can’t use. So I think it’s the combination of that approach, along with having a good barometer of which way the wind is blowing.

MCN: You’ve broadened out the series by developing Town Hall specials exploring current event topics. How do those specials build the Outnumbered Overtime brand?

HF: Sometimes what people get from the news can feel like a lecture, and that’s OK when you need information. What I’m trying to provide is an edification environment for people that doesn’t feel overbearing. I think context, perspective and action planning are really important -- town halls can do that for you. 

MCN: Are you surprised by the strong performance of cable news during a time when people are looking for more escapist entertainment programming?

HF: I think it’s more important than it ever has been. There are some incidents that grab us in big numbers on television, like the Super Bowl, and other things that have unified us as a country, like 9/11. I’m not saying that there haven’t been other huge times in our history and there will be others, but for this era there’s nothing that really compares to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has destroyed economies like wildfire, and so in this environment the category of news is relevant. As long as people still feel like having knowledge is power in their lives, they will watch news right now. 

Fox News channel will tackle the issue of mental health in a new virtual town hall special Wednesday (April 29) hosted by network anchor Harris Faulkner.

The special, America Copes Together, will will feature remote panels comprised of psychiatrists and everyday Americans to highlight the psychological effects that the COVID-19 crisis has had on families, the healthcare community, front line workers and all those isolated and impacted during the pandemic, according to network officials. The one-hour special will also cover such topics as the psychological toll of isolation and stay at home orders, as well as living in close quarters with loved ones.

America Copes Together is Faulkner’s fourth in-depth town hall during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the network. 

Faulkner also hosts Fox News' daily afternoon shows Outnumbered and Outnumbered Overtime.