Day: 10/8/2013

Rachel Maddow Whomps Megyn Kelly’s Premiere On Fox News

Posted by on October 8, 2013 at 8:31 pm. 37 Comments :

Last night Fox News debuted a new primetime lineup. It was the first time they had altered their schedule in more than a decade. They heavily promoted the changes and the new hosts for weeks. And on the the big night, when most new programs enjoy a ratings bump due to viewers sampling the new fare, Fox News did not get what they must have been expecting.

The top billing for the night went to Megyn Kelly, whose “Kelly File” has been eagerly anticipated by Foxophiles and received massive PR in advance of the debut. Unfortunately for her, she came in second to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in the key 25-54 year old demographic.

Rachel Maddow
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It would be bad enough for a Fox host to lose to an MSNBC show under ordinary circumstances, but to trail on the one night that ought to have been a runaway victory is a major embarrassment for Kelly and Fox. There were no extenuating circumstances that might have contributed to an unexpected win for Maddow. For instance, she did not have an exclusive interview with President Obama wherein he announced that he really was born in Kenya after all. And Kelly’s show had booked the GOP flavor of the week, Sen. Ted Cruz (TX-Tea Party), as her first guest, so she ought to have been well positioned to draw in the Fox fanatics in bulk. But it was not to be.

What’s more, Greta Van Susteren, who had moved from 10:00pm to 7:00pm, lost to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. And Sean Hannity, who lost his 9:00pm slot to Kelly and took over the 10:00pm time that Van Susteren vacated, could only manage a tie with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. The only win for Fox the whole night was by their perennial top dog, Bill O’Reilly, who bested Chris Hayes, the newest MSNBC host who has yet to find an audience.

These dismal performances by Fox programs are all the worse because the network had poured so much money and promotional muscle into the evening. It was their intent to inject new blood into the schedule in order to attract the younger, advertiser-favored demos that have avoided Fox like the plague. That goal was clearly not met – at least on the debut. And just to rub it in, MSNBC achieved their ratings victories with the same old shows they’ve had on for years and no extra promotion.

Rest assured that Fox programming executives are already huddling to figure out what went wrong and how to correct it. Kelly and the others may yet return to their perches atop the ratings tree. But they will still have little influence over the broader television audience who recognize Fox for what it is: the PR division of the Republican Party and the Tea Party cheerleading squad. Remember, Fox’s top rated programs only reach 1% of the American people, and the garbage that they ingest (see Fox Nation vs. Reality) just makes them ignorant, ineffectual, and filled with ghastly surprise when they lose elections.

[Follow Up: 10/27/2013] It is now three weeks since this article was published and I still get commenters giddily noting that Kelly’s ratings improved on subsequent nights. SO F**KING WHAT? This article is about the premiere episode and it even notes that her ratings may improve later. These FoxPods just can’t seem to focus on single topic.

Bill O’Reilly’s Know-Nothing Talking Points On ObamaCare (And Jon Stewart Too)

Posted by on October 8, 2013 at 12:37 pm. 9 Comments :

For the past week, the Fox News spokesman for the Divine Spirit, Bill O’Reilly, has been proselytizing his own prescription for resolving the government shutdown crisis. The centerpiece of his solution is his call to delay the Affordable Care Act’s “individual mandate” for one year. He says that big business is getting to waive their mandate for a year, so why not all of the American people.

Bill O'Reilly

The only thing wrong O’Reilly’s position is everything. First of all, Americans already have a de facto one year exemption from ObamaCare. The open enrollment period for ObamaCare extends for six months, until the end of March 2014. Anyone who does not get the required insurance by then will have to pay penalty, but it will not be due until 2015. So everyone has plenty of time between now and then to evaluate their options and make a decision that is in their best interest. Therefore, O’Reilly’s suggestion for a one year delay is moot. His notion that everybody must have insurance by January first or they will be billed immediately is simply untrue.

Secondly, O’Reilly uses as a justification for his superfluous delay proposal the previous granting of a one year waiver for the employer mandate. He reasons that if big business is granted this alleged reprieve, why not give the same break to individuals? But what O’Reilly either doesn’t know, or doesn’t say, is that the waiver to which he is referring is only going to a tiny minority of specific businesses that are not providing health insurance to their employees. Since about 96% of the impacted companies already provide such insurance, that leaves only the portion of the remaining 4% who are not prepared to comply that will be subject to the waiver. And that represents about 0.4% of the American people. Citing that miniscule piece of the program as justification for exempting everyone subject to the individual mandate is ludicrous.

When Bill O’Reilly mouths off ignorantly about subjects like these, it really isn’t particularly surprising. He does that pretty much every day. Unfortunately, his pal from the Daily Show, Jon Stewart, also got swept up in the false argument about business waivers during an interview last night with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. And as if it weren’t bad enough that he misread the facts, he berated Sebelius in a prolonged rant over that misunderstanding. Hopefully someone on his staff will provide him with more accurate data on this for future reference.

It is plainly absurd to delay a program that is already saving millions of dollars for millions of people on the basis of such flawed reasoning. And it certainly makes no sense to push everything back because a few companies got a waiver. The Tea Party Republicans advocating this course are engaging in deliberate obstruction and obfuscation, and they must not be allowed to get away with it. Their irresponsible behavior is already having an adverse effect on them with some polls showing they are at risk of losing their majority in the House of Representatives. So I guess the old saying about silver linings is true.