MSNBC

HUH? Fox News Wonders ‘How Can Professional Commentators Go On the Air and Speculate?’

Posted by on April 22, 2018 at 12:40 pm. NO Comments :

From its inception, Fox News was determined to disguise their political biases. They fashioned a network that they would claim is “fair and balanced,” but would never even attempt to live up to that standard. Last year they finally abandoned that slogan and replaced it with one that was obviously and shamelessly inspired by Donald Trump’s anti-media histrionics: “Real News.”

Fox News, Howard Kurtz

So it isn’t surprising when the chief media correspondent on Fox News, Howard Kurtz, would host a discussion on his show about media bias that flagrantly ignores it own ethical breaches. Sunday’s episode of MediaBuzz delved into the controversy surrounding Fox News host, and official Trump-fluffer, Sean Hannity. This week Hannity was revealed in court to be another client of Trump’s beleaguered attorney, Michael Cohen. He vehemently denied that which, in effect, means that he’s calling Cohen a liar. That’s something that Trump himself seems to be preparing to do.

Kurtz was disturbed by the media reaction to Hannity’s unambiguous ethical lapses (video below). Primarily, he found fault with the coverage of this story by his competitors on cable news. He led off the conversation saying that:

“In the aftermath, and it was such intense media reaction to this, a couple of people went on the air on other cable news channels and kind of just got out there.”

As examples of this alleged “outness,” Kurtz played video of two guests that appeared on MSNBC, but no other cable news channels. They raised questions about the undeniably conflicted relationship between Hannity and Cohen. The guests were Danielle Moodie-Mills, a SiriusXM talk show host, and Jennifer Rubin, a conservative opinion columnist from the Washington Post. Both observed the coincidence that Hannity had secured the services of Cohen, a “fixer” who had facilitated payoffs to the mistresses of his other clients (Trump and RNC official Elliot Broidy).

Since Hannity refused to disclose the nature of his relationship with Cohen, it’s entirely fair for pundits to assemble available data and offer analyses that seek to provide a coherent explanation. But that’s not how Kurtz sees it. He asked his guest, Shelby Holliday of the Wall Street Journal:

“How can professional commentators go on the air and speculate, without a shred of evidence right after this happened, that ‘Oh, there must have been a woman involved or something’ and there is absolutely no evidence to support it?”

Seriously? This is Fox News wondering whether it’s appropriate to speculate about public figures. It’s the network that spent years asserting that Barack Obama was an illegitimate president due his birth in Kenya. It’s the network that tried to blame Hillary Clinton for deliberately causing the deaths of American diplomats in Benghazi. It’s the network that advanced wild conspiracy theories like the child sex slave ring in the basement of a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor. And it’s the network that pushed ludicrous allegations that DNC employee Seth Rich’s murder was a clandestine, “Deep State” political assassination. That last one was Hannity’s baby. And those are just a few of Fox’s innumerable adventures in ridiculous and defamatory speculation.

Holliday responded to Kurtz’s inquiry by agreeing that “Journalistically that’s out of bounds. No reporters or news people should be speculating like that.” Of course, the examples that Kurtz played were opinion commentators, not reporters. And to her credit, Holliday did point that out to Kurtz. But Kurtz shot back that “Fine. You can criticize him all you want, but you can’t make stuff up and speculate.”

Well, thanks for that completely obvious and, for Fox News, hypocritical advice. Being told by Fox not to speculate is like being told by Donald Trump not to lie. And the fact that their specialist in media is so woefully lacking in self-awareness makes anything he has to say about the press unworthy of consideration. It’s asinine comments like these that make laughter the only appropriate response to anything Fox News says.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox News Fetishes Over Their False Claim that CNN Fetishes Over Trump’s Fetishes

Posted by on April 18, 2018 at 12:11 pm. NO Comments :

Last year an opposition research document compiled by a respected British intelligence operative surfaced that is still generating news. Known now as the “Steele Dossier,” it contained a wealth of information about Donald Trump that was both substantive and disturbing. And a small bit of it that was rather salacious. So guess which part drove Trump to distraction?

Fox News/Playboy

The findings that Christopher Steele included in his dossier placing Trump in a Moscow hotel with prostitutes have assumed an undue prominence in much of the press. No one should be surprised by that in a society that made Kim Kardashian a pop culture phenomenon. Fox News is no exception, as they frequently hyped up reports of hookers urinating on the bed in Trump’s hotel room as he watched from safe distance. Especially Sean Hannity, who can’t seem to keep his mind off of it (see video below).

Despite their own perverse complicity, Fox News is boldly calling out CNN for reporting on the very same subject. In effect, they are whining that their own salacious reporting isn’t doing as well as the salacious reporting by their competitors. Their media reporter, Brian Flood, is asserting that this “puts CNN coverage in the toilet.” He doesn’t say where it puts Fox’s coverage.

His arguments are strained, to say the least. He leads off by swinging at CNN boss Jeff Zucker, who he says “continues to focus on adult film stars and lurid claims about President Trump’s alleged activities in a Moscow hotel room.” In the same opening paragraph Flood baselessly claims that the “pornographic video probably does not exist.”

Flood disgorges the familiar Fox News talking points that the dossier is unverified (that’s not true) and that it was the basis for warrant to spy on Trump’s campaign (also untrue). Then he goes on to cite the number of times that the “pee tape” was mentioned on CNN over a finite period of time. Those stats came from the ultra-rightist media bashers at the Media Research Center.

The conclusion that Flood draws from his overtly biased sources and analysis is that CNN’s ratings have been severely damaged by their attention to this undeniable newsworthy story. He says that:

“The result of Zucker’s strategy has been a president of the United States who often refers to CNN as ‘fake news’ on a regular basis, while the network regularly loses to MSNBC when it comes to ratings.”

Of course, Trump called CNN, and the rest of the media that is appropriately critical, fake news long before this story broke. It has been a part of his public diatribe dating back to his campaign and his assertions that the media is the “enemy of the American people.” And CNN’s ratings, while trailing MSNBC and Fox, have never been better. So that doesn’t square with Flood’s claim that this story has hurt CNN.

What’s more, Flood completely ignores the fact that MSNBNC does similar reports on Trump’s “pee tape” escapades. And MSNBC is regularly beating Fox News in the ratings war. Especially Rachel Maddow who has taken the lead as the number one cable news program, leaving Sean Hannity without a pot to piss in.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Sucks To Be Trump: More Americans Trust the ‘Fake’ News than the President

Posted by on April 3, 2018 at 12:01 pm. 7 Comments :

It’s always easy to tell when Donald Trump is frightened by the political and legal perils he encounters. His first reaction is predictably to grab his phone and tweet out incoherent rants. They might be about issues he incompetently tries to advance, or about people he perceives as enemies. But often it’s about the media that he despises for doing their job.

Donald Trump

Most of the time Trump disparages the free press in a transparent attempt to inoculate himself from criticism. It’s a pathetic spectacle that everyone can see through, but worse, it’s anti-democratic. Sometimes he goes on the attack just to convince himself that he is loved by the American people, despite reality. On Tuesday morning Trump did the latter with a tweet lauding his alleged popularity:

Let’s just set aside the baseless and deranged “Cheatin’ Obama” crap (who cheats more than Trump? Ask any of his three wives) and focus on the substance. Rasmussen is one of the most egregiously biased pollsters, well known for skewing their results to favor Republicans and conservatives. So Trump’s numbers in this poll are unreliable and far outside the range of every other pollster. The RealClear Politics average for Trump currently shows an approval of 41.8 percent, disapproval 53.2 percent. That negative 11.4 percent gap averages the latest twelve surveys. Rasmussen is the only pollster who gives Trump a positive (+1) rating. The next closest is Fox News, whose number (-7) is not exactly something to brag about. No poll (except for Rasmussen) gives Trump a rating higher than 45 percent. Gallup has his approval at only 39 percent.

It’s also notable that since Trump posted his tweet, even the Rasmussen numbers have become negative, flipping to 50 disapprove. That’s one of the risks of depending on polls for your self-esteem. They change. Nevertheless, Trump is likely still wallowing in his delusional state of magnificence. However, by tweeting “Thank you to Rasmussen,” he is demonstrating that he doesn’t know what polls are. They are not favors to the subjects of the surveys and it’s peculiar to thank them for their results. Well, maybe Rasmussen is an exception to that as well.

UPDATE: Two days later, Trump dips again in Rasmussen poll. He’s now at 47% approve, 51% disapprove, with 41% strongly disapprove.

Another survey that was released Monday was from Monmouth University and covered the public view of Trump and the media. Like other polls before it, Monmouth found that Americans trust the media more than they do Donald Trump. That’s gotta sting the President who has been striving furiously to turn the nation against the press. The detail shows that 48 percent of Americans trust CNN more than Trump (35% trust Trump more). Forty-five percent trust MSNBC more than Trump (32% for Trump). Even 30 percent trust Fox News more than Trump (20% for Trump). Although the Fox numbers also show that a plurality of 37 percent trust both equally. This affirms that Trump’s base is still immovably stuck in the low thirties.

There are some other interesting results in this survey. Notably the fact that most Americans believe that the media, at least occasionally, reports “fake” news. And many them believe that it is done deliberately “in order to push an agenda.” That’s indicative of the harm done by a leader who has no respect for the free press and seeks to delegitimize journalism generally in order to escape accountability. But it also makes Trump’s trust levels even worse in context. The American people still trust the media more than Trump even though they think that what the media reports is occasionally fake. Which means that they think Trump is even more fake. Let’s see if he tweets anything about that.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

March Maddow-ness: MSNBC Dominates Fox News in the March Ratings Championship Game

Posted by on March 31, 2018 at 3:14 pm. 4 Comments :

Two years ago, Fox News was the unchallenged king of the cable news networks with ratings that sometimes exceeded the combined total of CNN and MSNBC. Last year, Rachel Maddow showed surprising strength against her competition, Sean Hannity. But now it is becoming a regular occurrence that MSNBC beats Fox News over significant parts of the daily schedule.

Rachel Maddow

MSNBC’s ratings success is driven by Maddow’s continued surge. She is no longer a quirky thorn in Fox’s side. She regularly wins her time period in the coveted advertising demographic of 18-34 year olds. In March she beat Hannity every single day of the month except for one. Her average audience for the month was 651,000. That compares to Hannity’s average of 568,000. But even more impressive is that Maddow also bested Hannity in total viewers fourteen out of the twenty-one weekdays in the month. Her average for total viewers was 2.99 million vs. Hannity’s 2.87 million.

MSNBC should also be proud of having better audience numbers in the demo than Fox News for most of the evening hours including primetime. Their average from 4:00pm to midnight was 458,400 vs. Fox’s 455,800. The Last Word with Lawerence O’Donnell won its time period thirteen of the twenty-one weekdays in March. And The 11th Hour with Brian Williams came out on top on nineteen days. Both of those programs scored higher than their competition (Laura Ingraham and Shannon Bream respectively) for the full month. And although Fox News generally did better during most of the daytime time periods, Deadline with Nicolle Wallace managed to beat Fox’s Neil Cavuto on eight days.

A weak point in MSNBC’s schedule is All In with Chris Hayes. Which is too bad because it’s an excellent show that has been recognized with multiple Emmys. However, it needs some juice if it’s going to be a decent leadin for Maddow and the rest of their primetime. They should think about pairing Hayes with Joy Reid as a co-host. Reid’s weekend program has been showing strength and is popular among MSNBC’s core audience. And it wouldn’t hurt to consider swapping Nicolle Wallace into Chris Matthew’s Hardball slot. Wallace has demonstrated her ability to pull in viewers, and Matthews may play better in the earlier, newsier part of the day.

The bottom line is that Fox News can no longer consider itself the number one network for cable news. It has been declining with each new reporting period. In January Fox News dropped fourteen percent in primetime. And February topped that with an additional fifteen percent decline. Meanwhile, MSNBC gained significantly in both of those months. February’s percentage gains were over twenty percent. Even worse for Fox News was their actual earnings performance. Their revenue rose less than either of their competitors – a measly seventeen percent. CNN’s rise doubled that to thirty-two percent. And MSNBC rocketed up sixty-two percent.

We can expect Fox’s earnings to fall even more in April with the advertiser exodus they are experiencing due to Laura Ingraham’s reprehensible attack on David Hogg, one of the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. So far there are at least eighteen major advertisers who have pulled their business from her show. And in the midst of that she just announced that she will be on “vacation” all of next week. For the record, that’s the same thing Bill O’Reilly did after his advertisers bailed en masse and just before he was canned by Fox.

UPDATE: Forbes affirms the above ratings analysis.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

In Unhinged Speech Trump Slobbers Over Foreign Despots While Attacking America’s Free Press

Posted by on March 11, 2018 at 10:13 am. 2 Comments :

The President of the United States left Washington, D.C. this Saturday, but didn’t head south to his luxury Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach as usual. Instead Donald Trump went up to Pennsylvania to deliver a campaign speech on behalf of Rick Saccone, who is at risk of losing to Democrat Conner Lamb next Tuesday in a district that Trump won by twenty points. The rally was reminiscent of Trump’s aimless campaign speeches in 2016 where he pontificated like a mad evangelist for an hour or more.

Donald Trump

In keeping with his practice of shrieking sermonizing, Trump made a point of attacking what he considers the the scourge of his existence: the media (video below). He rattled off the sort of derogatory slander that would ordinarily be reserved for bitter enemies of all that is righteous. It was a storm of damnation, both personal and broadly general.

For instance, Trump lashed out at NBC’s Meet the Press calling it “A show now headed by sleepy eyes Chuck Todd. He’s a sleeping son of a bitch, I’ll tell ya.” Remember, this speech was at a daytime rally with children present. He also went after an unnamed “certain anchor on CNN” who he said was “fake as hell, CNN. The worst. So fake. Fake news.” And he wasn’t letting NBC off either. He ranted that they were “perhaps worse than CNN, I have to tell you. And MSNBC is horrible.” Continuing down that path of raw animosity he called MSNBC “third rate. And NBC, which is horrible. Their newscast, by the way is not doing well. On NBC network. They’re heading down the tubes.”

This might be a good time to inject some facts into the discussion. NBC’s newscast anchored by Lester Holt has won ten consecutive quarters in the key advertising demographic of 25-54 year olds. They were also number one in the most recent sweeps period of February 2018. And their morning news program, the Today Show, topped their competition (ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS This Morning) in both the demo and total viewers. As for MSNBC, Rachel Maddow has been beating Trump’s BFF Sean Hannity on a regular basis.

But Trump wasn’t about to let mere reality interfere with his delusions. He went on to make a ludicrous and utterly nonsensical prediction about the media that he despises so, and which he is convinced hates him. Pointing to the press at the rally he said…

“Six months prior to the election, every one of those guys – ‘We really endorse Donald Trump. We think he has to win.’ You know why? Because if I don’t win the election their ratings are gonna go so far down they’re gonna be out of business, every one of them.”

WTF is he trying to say here? That the media that he accuses of trying to destroy him will suddenly reason that it’s in their interest to support him? If that’s true, then why wouldn’t they support him now for the same reasons? What’s more, he’s implying that the media’s surging ratings are the result of having him around to attack. Which means that more viewers are watching because they enjoy seeing him get hammered. That’s actually true. Every poll shows that Trump has the lowest approval rating of any president ever recorded. So people probably are happy to see him get cut down by responsible journalists whose reporting of Trump’s failures is just part their job.

The tone that Trump sets in these rallies is decidedly hostile and un-American. He praises China’s Xi Jinping, who just maneuvered himself into being president for life (of which Trump is envious). He declares that he blindly trusts Kim Jong Un’s promise to refrain from missile and nuclear testing. He protects Vladimir Putin’s Russia from sanctions mandated by Congress as punishment for their election tampering. Trump speaks of these and other anti-democratic tyrants in radiantly glowing terms. But he viciously insults fellow Americans who practice their Constitutionally protected right to freedom of the press. And he thinks that’s how to MAGA – or KAG, as he now says (Keep America Gross).

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump Hypes Fox News Ratings While Ignoring the Success of Rachel Maddow and MSNBC

Posted by on March 6, 2018 at 11:58 am. NO Comments :

There is something deeply disturbing about a president who obsesses about television ratings. Especially when it’s focused so narrowly on one particular network that serves as his biggest media booster. Donald Trump has spent more time on Twitter fawning over Fox News than almost any other single subject. He frequently tweets or retweets things he just watched on Fox and Friends or Hannity as if they were his closest advisors.

Rachel Maddow

On Tuesday morning Trump retweeted a post by his son Eric that celebrated Fox’s ratings performance in February. Why on Earth was this so important to someone who is currently burdened with a nuclear standoff with North Korea, Russian interference in American elections, a trade war that he instigated, children being massacred in schools, undocumented residents who have spent nearly their whole lives in the U.S. facing deportation, and so many other serious matters? It’s almost as if his only experience for running the country came from being a TV personality.

Okay, so Fox had a pretty good month. They lost January, so it must be a relief to them – and to Trump. However, their February win wasn’t exactly a runaway. While Trump slams his arch-enemy CNN in this tweet, he neglects to mention MSNBC and Rachel Maddow. As News Corpse reported last week, Maddow had another impressive month, falling just short of beating Sean Hannity again in the key demographic of 25-54 year olds. And although her average audience was shy of an outright victory, she did win more days during the month than Hannity did.

What’s more, in January Fox News dropped fourteen percent in primetime. Now February has topped that with an additional fifteen percent decline. Meanwhile, MSNBC gained significantly in both months of this new year. February’s percentage gains were over twenty percent. Funny, Trump never mentioned any of that. But he did tweet about the ratings for the Oscar telecast on Sunday. And for some reason he took delight in the numbers having declined. Apparently our President is happy when the film industry, a major national employer and contributor to America’s domestic and export economy, is doing poorly.

Trump’s tweets on behalf of Fox News are more evidence that the network is a wholly owned and operated division of the Trump administration. Or is it the other way around? Or are both Trump and Fox News divisions of Russia’s Putin Enterprises Worldwide. All three scenarios are way too plausible. But most Americans would agree that the President has more important things to do than analyzing TV ratings and promoting programs that unfailingly exalt their Dear Leader. Jake Tapper of CNN had a pithy commentary himself on Twitter saying…

And conversely, if you’re a news organization and the folks in power are constantly maligning you, you’re doing it right. By definition. There’s a reason that Trump is relentlessly attacking CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, etc. He’s afraid because actual journalists are revealing his criminal activities and those of his associates. His only recourse is a campaign of smear tactics. But that is only making him look even more guilty. So keep it up, Donnie. And remember, no matter how bad the ratings are for CNN, yours are still worse.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Rachel Maddow Guides MSNBC to a Strong February 2018 – Fox News and Hannity are Scared

Posted by on March 2, 2018 at 10:40 am. 3 Comments :

In another embarrassingly weak performance, Fox News has suffered a ratings fall-off in February 2018 that signals more trouble ahead. Fox’s declining fortunes are becoming a regular event. In January the network dropped fourteen percent in primetime. Now February has topped that with an additional fifteen percent decline. Meanwhile, MSNBC gained significantly in both months of this new year.

Fox News Sad

In January Rachel Maddow outperformed Hannity, and all other cable news programs, in the key audience demographic of 25-54 year olds. She came just short of repeating that performance in February with an average of 635,000 viewers per night. Hannity edged her out with 643,000. However, of the twenty days in February, Maddow won a majority (eleven) of them.

Maddow’s practice of covering breaking news and the unfolding scandals of the scandal-ridden Trump administration has proven to be an unqualified success. Her deep dive into research and expert analysis continues to draw devoted viewers. Two years ago no one would have predicted that Fox would be a second place news network. Fox actually moved Hannity into a direct time period competition with Maddow in an attempt to blow her out with his top rated program. That didn’t go exactly according to plan and must be gnawing at Hannity and his Fox bosses.

Consequently, Hannity’s program is sinking into ever more ludicrous conspiracy theory territory. He is challenging Alex Jones as the right-wing’s most unhinged crackpot. On almost every show Hannity ignores actual news of Trump’s daily failures. Instead, he features topics exploring Hillary Clinton’s ancient and baseless controversies, or some version of the alleged “deep state” takeover of America. And of course, Hannity is serving his master in the White House with constant attempts to slander special counsel Robert Mueller and the FBI.

These subjects are also spread across the Fox News schedule. It’s why Fox viewers are so often shown to be more uninformed (or ill informed) than viewers of any other news network. And it is probably contributing to the overall audience decline at Fox as people seek out actual news and information relevant to their lives. But it is consistent with the Fox News commitment to defend Trump at all costs.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

The Fox News mission has always been to prop up the conservative, Republican agenda. But it’s more immediate objective is to discredit the investigations into Trump’s unsavory connections to Russia (and other financial corruption). And flagrant propagandists like Hannity, Tucker Carlson (who just called Democrats anti-American), and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends, are focused intently on smearing America’s law enforcement and intelligence institutions. They are putting their rancid partisanship before the interests of the country. And America’s television viewers are reacting with disgust and seeking out more credible reporting. Which is good news for Maddow and MSNBC.

Fox News Blames Obama (?) for Trump’s Wife-Beating Aide – And Joy Reid Aint Havin’ It

Posted by on February 11, 2018 at 10:44 am. 1 Comments :

There’s nothing Fox News likes better than to invent phony scandals about Democrats, particularly Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But second on their list of not-so-secret pleasures is blaming Donald Trump’s scandals on those same innocent Democrats. There doesn’t even need to be any plausible relationship between Fox’s victims and the heinous misbehavior of Trump.

Donald Trump

Case in point, on Saturday’s episode of Fox’s Justice with Jeanine Pirro, the former alleged judge stepped about as far off the limb of reality as possible when she sought to defend Trump’s Chief of Staff, John Kelly, and his wife-beating aide, Rob Porter. In a typically unhinged, spittle inflected rant, Pirro unloaded absurd accusations that only affirm that she must be suffering from a brain-eating virus. Outraged that anyone might criticize Trump or Kelly, Pirro bellowed:

“Stop a four-star general who is running the White House, who believes in chain of command, who made decision within forty minutes, becuase you hate Donald Trump? Find another scapegoat. You might want to look at the last president.”

That’s a good a point. I would much rather look at the last president than the orange-crusty facade of the current one. But if she’s implying that President Obama had something to do with Porter’s documented assaults on his former spouses, Pirro is barking up the wrong scapegoat.

Fortunately, MSNBC’s Joy Reid caught Pirro’s act and wasn’t impressed by the surreal performance art that passes for news on Fox. Reid replied to Pirro in a succinct manner that reminded everyone that, not only is Obama a role model for presidential fidelity, but that Pirro’s network has been a haven for sexual predators and perverts (video below):

“Fox News, Donald Trump’s favorite TV channel, has revived its tried and true tactic for getting the Republican president out of a jam: Blame Obama. Yes Fox has actually found a way to blame the former president – a man did not abuse women, much less his wife; who did not face multiple allegations or sexual misconduct or assault – for the latest White House scandal.

“Fox’s Trump defense should come as no surprise. The network reflects the attitude of Trump himself, who has a long history of defending men accused of misconduct against women and girls. Including Alabama’s Roy Moore and Fox’s own Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes.”

That pretty much says it all. But if you’d like a primer of the repulsive and deviant culture that Fox News nurtures, look no further than the list of perverts who were forced out due to “inappropriate” behavior. Then imagine how many others are still there who haven’t yet been caught. And the same can be said of this White House where the President predictably sides with abusive men over their victims.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Rachel Maddow Swamps Hannity to Become the #1 Cable News Show for January 2018

Posted by on February 1, 2018 at 9:19 am. 2 Comments :

Last September Fox News moved Sean Hannity’s program to 9:00pm to compete directly with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Looking back they might not consider that a particularly smart decision. Hannity is Fox’s highest rated program, but it consistently comes up second to Maddow, which must be a painful embarrassment. And the first month of 2018 was almost all Maddow’s

Rachel Maddow Sean Hannity

The first week that Hannity aired in Maddow’s time period he looked pretty good. Of course he front-loaded the show with high profile guests including Fox favorites like Steve Bannon, Bill O’Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh. He certainly wasn’t going to keep that up. But it was enough to get Donald Trump to retweet his son Eric bragging…

It was mostly downhill from there. In January Maddow outperformed Hannity, and all other cable news programs, in the key audience demographic of 25-54 year olds. She averaged 677,000 viewers to Hannity’s 636,000. She scored solid victories for three of the four weeks in both the key demo and total viewers. The last week of the month Hannity staged a bit of comeback as he ramped up his wild-eyed, conspiracy theory rhetoric. But by month’s end Maddow still had a higher average rating than Hannity.

What’s more, MSNBC was the only cable news network to see ratings gains year-over-year. They grew in total prime time viewers more than sixty-one percent, and in total day viewers more than fifty-five percent. Meanwhile, Fox News declined fourteen percent and eighteen, respectively, in those same metrics.

It would be an understatement to call Hannity’s deranged broadcasts “over the top.” He repeatedly assailed the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller as corrupt agents of the “deep state” who were acting on behalf of a “secret society.” These were deliberate attempts to smear those investigating Trump’s unsavory relationships with Russia. Hannity’s rants derailed with repetitious hyperbole such as…

  • “…the biggest scandal in American history.”
  • “…never seen in American history.”
  • “One of the biggest political scandals in modern U.S. history.”
  • “…far bigger than Watergate.”
  • “…makes Watergate look like stealing a Snickers bar.”
  • “This is Watergate on steroids and human growth hormones.”

No doubt this nonsense will play well among Hannity’s dimwitted viewers and the glassy-eyed disciples of Donald Trump. Hannity is striving to steal the mantle of right-wing kook from Alex Jones. And his guests are often more tightly wound than he is.

This strategy could pay off over time because so much of the conservative audience has a an affinity for tabloid melodrama and unrealistic political soap operas. They like nothing better than the wingnut version of Housewives of Washington, D.C., mixed with some Duck Dynasty doofusness, and a healthy dose of white nationalism. You know, the makings of the average Trump voter. And Hannity is serving it up by the shovel-full.

Time will tell if Maddow’s thoughtful, well-reasoned, fact-based brand of intelligent discourse will continue to best Hannity’s Lowbrow Racist Hour. But it’s encouraging to see how successful she has been against competition that was considered unbeatable a year ago.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Rachel Maddow Starts 2018 With Commanding Lead Over Sean Hannity and Fox News

Posted by on January 17, 2018 at 12:13 pm. NO Comments :

Washington politics in 2018 so far promises to be a rollicking ride with unrelenting foolishness and embarrassments from the White House. In a few short days Donald Trump has managed to insult El Salvador, Haiti, and the entire continent of Africa. His former campaign chair and White House chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was quoted accusing the President’s son of treason, and then was subpoenaed by special counsel Robert Mueller. And growing concerns about Trump’s mental fitness spurred him to laughably declare that he’s a “stable genius.”

Rachel Maddow

However, with regard to the Nielsen ratings of the cable news networks, the new year is starting off pretty much the way last year concluded. Rachel Maddow continues to surge with poignant reporting on subjects that America’s news consumers are clearly interested in. She is dominating her competition on Fox News and providing a boost to her colleagues on MSNBC. Meanwhile, Fox News is more often finding itself in the unfamiliar position of an also ran with reporting that is becoming more deranged everyday. They appear to be adopting the editorial lunacy of Alex Jones’ Infowars and other right-wing fringe outlets that specialize in conspiracy theories and propaganda.

In the first two weeks of 2018, Maddow has won every single night in the key 25-54 year old demographic. She’s consistently beating Sean Hannity and every other cable news program in primetime. She has a twenty-one percent average margin of victory over Hannity (686K vs. 568K) for the first half of January. Maddow is also topping Hannity in total viewers by about eight percent (3.1M vs. 2.9M), driven by victories in seven out of nine nights.

MSNBC is seeing its schedule score additional victories with the programs that follow Maddow. The 11th Hour with Brian Williams beat Fox News @Night with Shannon Bream every night. The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell beat Fox’s Laura Ingraham Angle eight out of nine nights. And MSNBC took the whole primetime block four nights during the period.

Maddow’s dominance of Hannity is a huge embarrassment for Fox News. He was the only old-timer left after Bill O’Reilly was fired for serial sexually predatory behavior, and Megyn Kelly quit in part due to the sexual harassment she suffered. That left Hannity as the de facto face of Fox News. And as he drifted further over the edge of wingnut extremism his ratings were battered by his fetish for Hillary Clinton’s emails and a tedious obsession with the debunked Uranium One non-scandal.

With each new day Fox News is cementing its role as the state-run TV news network. If they think they will restore their past glory by sucking up to Donald Trump, the most unpopular president in history, they are going to be sorely disappointed. But don’t expect them to change course now. Fox News will continue to lavish undeserved praise on Trump, and defend his every failure, for the foreseeable future. At this point they have no clue, or interest, in functioning as a legitimate news operation. With Rupert Murdoch and his sons running the network it will remain a rabidly partisan source of racist, war mongering, science denying, treasonous Trumpism, and toadying for the GOP (Greedy One Percent).

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.