Fox News Suffers Worst Ratings In Thirteen Years – And That’s Not Their Big Problem

Fox News has fallen and it can’t get up. Ratings for the month of May 2014, have just been published, and the numbers are devastating for Fox News. While still occupying the top slot among the cable news networks, Fox saw about a quarter of its audience dissolve across every demographic group and time period.

Go Fox Yourself
[More cable news ratings here.]

Every Fox program in primetime dropped by double-digits, with Bill O’Reilly taking the deepest dive. Sean Hannity posted some of his lowest numbers ever in his new 10:00 pm time slot. And Megyn Kelly’s new, and highly anticipated, primetime show failed to improve on the ratings performance of her predecessor.

To be sure, Fox was not the only network to see declines. In fact, CNN had an even larger dip. The news was much better for MSNBC who was down the least of all the cable news networks. They lost a relatively insignificant five percent of total viewers, but actually saw increases for Morning Joe, and for Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow in primetime.

For Fox to post numbers that they haven’t seen since August of 2001 (before 9/11) is a painful blow to both their reputation and their bank account. But they have even bigger problems. The viewers that do tune in to Fox are significantly older than viewers of their competitors. Fox News has always had the oldest skewing audience in cable news. With a median age of 68.8 years, Fox’s audience is over six years older than either CNN or MSNBC. It’s even worse for their top rated program (O’Reilly) who’s average viewer is over 72 years old. And their Great Blonde Hope (Kelly), who was specifically brought in to draw younger viewers, also exceeded Fox’s average with her typical viewer voyeur being over 70.

An analysis of the audience composition for the three cable news networks shows that, of Fox’s total audience, a pitiful 20% are in the 25-54 age group favored by advertisers. It’s even worse for their primetime schedule where only 15% fall into that group. That compares to CNN with 30%/35% respectively, and MSNBC with 31%/28%. In other words, CNN and MSNBC draw 50% more total viewers in the younger demos, and they double Fox’s ratio in primetime.

This makes it all the more curious that Fox News is barreling forward with a strategy to viciously insult their biggest viewer bloc. Recently, Fox regular Karl Rove launched an attack on Hillary Clinton with vile inferences that she is “old and stale” or perhaps brain damaged. Expressing such open contempt and belittling of the capacity for older persons to be effective leaders is not a particularly sound way to ingratiate oneself with the senior citizens that make up the bulk of ones audience.

Shameless self-promotion…
Get Fox Nation vs. Reality. Available now at Amazon.

Apparently Fox is not satisfied with alienating African-Americans and Latinos and women and youth and the middle-class and workers and, of course, most of America’s liberals and moderates. Now they are aiming to narrow their appeal even more by driving away the last remnants of their audience – senior citizens. Keep up the good work, Fox.

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21 thoughts on “Fox News Suffers Worst Ratings In Thirteen Years – And That’s Not Their Big Problem

  1. Go Get Foxed Hannity Real Good! And stay out of Florida” We will Mess you Up Real Bad?

    • I never know what in the hell you’re saying.

  2. I’m in my 80s and have FOX turned on all day but I can’t see the screen very well (cataracts) or hear what is said (hearing aids are not working). I am just waiting for some real sexy women to take over the programs such as Palin. LOL

  3. I don’t know. Fox has been incredibly effective at setting a national narrative that has almost no base in reality.
    Yesterday I overheard a customer complimenting a store owner for having bought a soda machine saying ” how did you slip that by Obama?”. When I pointed out that they were probably referring to Bloomberg, not Obama, they smiled and said it was more fun to blame Obama. You can’t tell me that Americans, by and large, wouldn’t rather be lied to by Fox then hear the truth somewhere else.

  4. We in Australia woke up to Murdoch’s Fox propaganda decades ago, stop being sheep and switch FOX OFF it has an agenda that is pure lies and deciet.

    • Unfortunately I think Martin K’s comment was a little premature…….
      Not all Australians have woken up to Murdoch propaganda…..they are
      the ones that read the Telegraph and vote for Tony Abbott….

  5. I’ll bet this is due mostly to people dropping their TV cable service. I get all the TV I need to watch between Amazon Prime and Netflix at a cost of $8 a month as opposed to $100 from cable. I have no doubt millions are following my lead. Television has become too expensive to bother with. I don’t have enough leisure time to watch $100 a month worth of television.

    • I don’t know where you got such an abysmally poor ability to comprehend what you read. This isn’t about which network is number one (although I did report that in the very first paragraph). It’s about audience composition and the starkly lower ratio of young viewers for Fox News. If you can’t understand that, that’s your problem.

      • You obviously do not understand what a demographic is and don’t understand how to read the ratings for all of these cable news channels. I’ll say it again and if you can’t understand it then that’s you’re problem. The Fox News Channel is beating ALL of it’s competitors in ALL of the different AGE categories. Please try to understand the ratings and what the demographics are.

        • It’s not about finding out who’s successful- it’s about slamming fox news. Dontcha get it? The fact that fox still has a larger audience than any other cable network is something to be avoided and not mentioned. Concentrate on the niches and the stats which make MSNBC look good. And by all means, refer to anyone who chooses the female broadcaster on Fox News as “voyeurs”. Really classy.

          • On their very best days, they reach slightly fewer than 1 in 100 of us. Network news broadcasts attract an audience (at minimum) 8 times larger, day in and day out, every day of the week. Hate to break this one to you Junior, but most of us simply do not watch cable news at all. And once the Reaper finishes his work on the FOX “News” audience, there will be considerably fewer still.

            • Fox is owned by Saudi Muslim Sharia law practicing Taliban supporting Arab oil shieks who like to behead people.

  6. This whole article was meant to be funny, right?

    • Oooh. Fox’s ratings went up marginally after their worst showing in 13 years. Now they are slightly higher than their worst showing in 13 years. That’ll teach me.

  7. Why not just title this article; How I found a way to bash Fox News?

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