CNN

Fox News Propped Up By Republicans And Southerners

Posted by on August 18, 2009 at 12:35 pm. 6 Comments :

A new poll by Daily Kos/Research 2000 explores some interesting, but not entirely surprising, viewing patterns for the three top cable news networks. The poll’s most revealing results are those that break out party affiliation and regional viewing.

Overall, 25% of respondents watch Fox News at least once a week. That number includes 23% of Democrats and 14% of Independents. The obvious partisan standout is Republicans with 52% watching at least once a week. Similarly, regional viewing is heavily weighted to the south with 39% of southerners tuning in to Fox News. The rest of the nation is far less attracted to the right-wing network who draws significantly fewer viewers from the west (23%), the midwest (21%), and the northeast (13%). Also notable is the dismal performance of Fox amongst young voters (18-29) and minorities, at least 80% of whom report that they never watch Fox News. In fact, more than 50% of all of the groups of viewers (party, region, ethnicity, age) never watch Fox News, except for Republicans (38%).

Republicans and southerners are also the most sharply segmented groups in the survey when queried on viewing of CNN and MSNBC. An examination of the data shows that these two groups almost completely shut out any news source other than Fox News. To be sure, Democrats favor MSNBC and, to a lesser extent CNN, in greater numbers than other demographic breakouts, but the disparity is nowhere near as great as that for Republicans and southerners.

These numbers are essentially repeated when the question turns from viewing habits to perceptions of accuracy. The only significant variance is in the “not sure” column. For those who reported being unsure with regard to accuracy, both CNN and Fox had percentages in the low twenties. MSNBC, however, reported 60% not sure. This number probably reflects the lower distribution of MSNBC on cable outlets nationally.

The bottom line is that Republicans and the south occupy a very different country than the rest of us do. This party and regional divergence could not be more pronounced. It suggests that a case could be made that the Civil War was not a particularly constructive event. The consequence of this discord is that neither the conservative south, nor the more progressive north, west, and east, are being represented very well. Previous studies have shown these same distinctions on policy questions like health care and opinions on whether the President was a natural born U.S. citizen.

This new poll is a useful glimpse into cable news viewing habits, but I would still like to see what a Nielsen survey would show. There is ample evidence that Fox is a predominately regional network whose viewers are clustered in the south. With Nielsen data to confirm this, advertisers might alter the way they allocate their budgets. Also, cable operators might adjust their channel offerings, which could help to resolve the distribution problem that MSNBC has been hampered by.

It is truly a shame that the majority of the country is being held hostage by a minority that is pushing a Dark Ages platform that opposes universal health care, civil rights, tax fairness, and environmental protection. And it compounds the shame that an overtly biased cable news network is artificially elevated in a manner that inflates its clout so that it can further distort the political landscape.

However, one other thing needs to be taken from this survey. The numbers of respondents who say they never watch any of the cable news nets (averaging over 2/3) affirms my long held belief that far too much is made of what these networks do and say. The total viewership in primetime for the whole bunch is less than 2% of the American population. Putting that into perspective should give analysts pause when attributing any significance to what is said on cable news.

Fox Nation Declares Victory: Susan Roesgen Edition

Posted by on July 16, 2009 at 11:52 pm. 2 Comments :

In yet another example of the Fox Nation’s embarrassing unprofessionalism and arrogance, they are once again claiming victory for something they had absolutely nothing to do with. On this occasion they are suffering from the delusion that they are responsible for CNN not renewing the contract of reporter Susan Roesgen.

In last April’s Tea Parties, Roesgen confronted a teabagger who was blathering incoherently about Obama being a fascist. The crowd became increasingly hostile making it impossible to continue the segment. She eventually signed off saying that…

“I think you get the general tenor of this. It’s anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network, Fox.”

The encounter drew criticism from right-wing blogizens who pounced on her for daring to tell the truth about Fox News. In all honesty, I feel that Roesgen did cross a line by appearing to be confrontational. It is appropriate for her to challenge a subject, but not to become emotionally connected. However, it is exceedingly hypocritical for FoxPods to complain so bitterly about Roesgen’s alleged bias without ever acknowledging the far greater bias exercised by Fox News. Remember, Fox correspondents were actually participating in the Tea Parties as promoters and even hosts.

Nevertheless, Fox’s declaration of victory is hysterical. First of all, there is nothing to suggest that Fox deserved any credit whatsoever for this personnel decision by CNN. They don’t even offer any evidence that Roesgen’s separation from CNN had anything to do with the Tea Bag affair. In case they haven’t noticed, lots of people at all networks have succumbed to downsizing in recent months due solely to market conditions.

While Roesgen could have conducted herself better, her actions did not merit termination. So the fact that so many rightists on sites like Fox Nation and TVNewser are so giddy upon hearing this news is revealing. After all, none of them were calling for Glenn Beck’s head when he agreed with his guest that “the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.” Apparently, to conservatives, it is a worse offense to take a clumsy rhetorical swipe at a competitor than it is to advocate terrorist attacks against America.

Less than a week ago, Fox Nation triumphantly declared that they were the victors over President Obama because a climate change bill had been delayed. In that case as well, Fox had nothing to do with it and it wasn’t much a victory because the delay was temporary and had no material effect on the bill’s progress.

It appears that Fox Nation is going to make a habit of these “Mission Accomplished” moments. That stance in and of itself is evidence of Fox’s bias. They have ceased to even pretend to be a neutral news enterprise. They are now openly admitting that they have a stake in the outcomes of political affairs. And when they think their side has won, they won’t hesitate to declare victory and commence a celebration.

Don’t Believe The Hype About Fox News Ratings

Posted by on July 1, 2009 at 3:49 pm. 12 Comments :

As the numbers come in for the second quarter, cable news networks are all putting on their best spin to wrangle positive stories that promote how much better they are than their competition. It’s an age-old ritual that pits marketing flacks against one another as they jostle for position and advertising bucks. And nobody does this more relentlessly than Fox News.

Everywhere you look you can see the effect of Fox’s PR blitz. They proudly boast that they have increased viewership in the 25-54 demographic 50% over Q2 of 2008 (Monday-Sunday, primetime). Simultaneously, they taunt MSNBC and CNN for falling off 2.6% and 19.2% respectively. The core of their message is that, along with continuing their leading position in cable news, they are also outpacing their rivals in growth. That’s an argument that requires a little further exploration.

Fox News has typically been the slowest growing cable news network. Up until about a year ago, they were the only network that regularly posted declines, which they did for a couple of years running. So what happened in the last year that appears to have interrupted that trend?

Recall that during the second quarter of 2008, the Democratic Party was still embroiled in a fiercely contested primary for president. The Republican primary had been effectively over since February. So interest in campaign news tilted away from the GOP network (aka Fox). What’s more, Democrats had forsworn appearing in debates sponsored by Fox News. The result was that MSNBC and CNN benefited noticeably by their coverage of the most compelling news events of the season, while Fox had to be satisfied with interviewing themselves and squawking from the bleachers. Consequently, Fox’s ratings for Q2 of 2008 were 2.3% lower than the same period in 2007. By comparison, MSNBC was up 46.9% and CNN was higher by 21.7%.

By outperforming Fox so spectacularly, from a growth perspective, in 2008, it makes for difficult comparisons in 2009. So a far more interesting analysis would be to remove the unique circumstances of the 2008 presidential campaign year, and compare performance from 2007 to 2009. In that race, Fox still did pretty well gaining 47.2% over the two year span. However, MSNBC was close behind with a 42.7% gain. CNN, while not keeping stride with the others, was still not as far behind as represented in the single year comparison. They were basically flat (-1.7%).

None of this diminishes the fact that Fox is still the runaway leader according to Nielsen, an increasingly unreliable source that even Bill O’Reilly considers to be less than honest. And although he pretends to be opposed to big-government interference and regulation, he hypocritically declares that…

“The bottom line on this is there may be some big-time cheating going on in the ratings system, and we hope the feds will investigate. Any fraud in the television rating system affects all Americans.”

Fox’s ratings success is more likely due to the cult-like brand loyalty of the rightist, delusional demographic. But it is still disheartening because their ratings dominance rewards them financially for lying and advocating terrorism. However, on a positive note, MSNBC was the number one cable news network among 18-34 year-olds. This continues a trend that suggests that the next generation of news consumers will be rejecting Fox News and its ilk.

In the meantime, we’ll just have to tolerate Fox’s bragging while putting it into perspective. They still have fewer viewers than SpongeBob SquarePants. Their highest rated show (O’Reilly) still has about a third of the viewers of broadcast TV’s lowest rated news program (CBS Nightly News). And there is real consolation in knowing that, while they win on the Idiot Box, they are losing at the ballot box.

Starve The Beast: The Wrath Of The Right

Posted by on March 2, 2009 at 9:45 am. 11 Comments :

We are now a month into the administration of Barack Obama. It’s a month that seems to have been packed with a year’s worth of activity. From the first day in office when Obama issued executive orders permitting more openness with presidential records and Freedom of Information Act requests, to announcements of major policy agendas for an economy on life support and the still soul-sapping wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the White House has been busy, to say the least.

At the same time, they have had to deal with the opposition of an increasingly obstructionist Republican minority and a media that is overtly hostile. Last year, prior to the election, Fox News was already fortifying its right flank. New multimillion dollar contracts were handed out to Roger Ailes, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. Hannity’s show shed the dead weight of alleged liberal Alan Colmes. Glenn Beck was brought in to shore up the daytime crowd. Neil Cavuto, a bully who is every bit as obnoxious as O’Reilly poisons the economic news, and he is also managing editor of Murdoch’s Fox Business News. And just this week Bill Sammon, author of a shelf full of bitterly partisan books, was promoted to VP and Washington Editor for the network.

The result is a full court press of some of the dirtiest political assaults ever waged by what is advertised as a “news” network. Fox News is shamelessly pushing a campaign to characterize Obama as a Socialist – a committed opponent of America and its values – from 6:00 am with the crew of Fox & Friends, to after midnight with broadcasts and repeats of their primetime neanderthal shoutcasters. They get their marching orders directly from Rupert Murdoch who last September said that…

“[Obama’s] policy is really very, very naive, old fashioned, 1960’s socialist.”

Even worse, these rightist dissidents come very close to openly advocating acts of violence and armed rebellion. Glenn Beck’s ominously titled “War Room” was an hour long descent into fear mongering that posited nothing short of the decline of western civilization. The upshot of this Terror Hour is that America’s days are numbered, so you had better start stockpiling guns, hoarding food and water, converting your dollars to gold, and barricading your secluded compound in the Wyoming wilderness (move over Ted Kaczynski). And, of course, it’s all Obama’s fault.

Another result of this Apocalyptic programming surge is higher ratings for Fox News. The core primetime schedule on Fox has enjoyed a rare uptick in audience growth. For the past three years, Fox, while number one in total audience, has been the slowest growing network in cable news. CNN and MSNBC produced consistently stronger growth. Particularly MSNBC, which was once a struggling also-ran, but which now challenges Fox’s powerhouses and routinely beats CNN. But the numbers for this February are another story.

Total Day: FNC +29%, MSNBC +17%, CNN +2%.
Primetime: FNC +28%, MSNBC +23%, CNN -30%.

What accounts for the turnaround in Fox’s fortunes? Well, first of all, they are benefiting from their previous slack performance. In other words, they were able to record higher comparative rates of growth because their prior year numbers were held down due to some rather unique circumstances. To understand the current numbers, you need to remember what was going on a year ago.

In February of 2008 the Democratic Party was in the middle of a hotly contested presidential primary. Early in the month it was already apparent that McCain would win his Party’s nomination. Consequently, audiences viewing campaign news were disproportionately composed of Democrats. Amongst the biggest draws were the televised debates. Democratic candidates, you may recall, had forsworn Fox News as a host for their debates. So the two Democratic debates held in February 2008 were carried by CNN and MSNBC, and both drew audiences many times greater than their regularly scheduled programming. Democrats also shunned Fox for other TV appearances and interviews. It had gotten so bad that Chris Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday, made a veiled threat in December of 2007:

“I think the Democrats are damn fools [for] not coming on Fox News.”

We know the problem still existed in March of 2008 because that’s when Wallace debuted his Obama Watch: a clock that would record how long before Obama appeared on Wallace’s show. It was a childish prank on Wallace’s part, but it clearly showed that the Democratic embargo of Fox News was having a real impact. For CNN and MSNBC, who had the guests and the event programming that appealed to the most motivated news consumers, it meant higher ratings. Fox, on the other hand, had depressed numbers because their most loyal audience – Republicans – already had a candidate, so there was no campaign drama to keep them tuned in. Comparing those numbers to February 2009 would, therefore, be favorable to Fox by producing a greater percent difference.

So some of the good news for Fox was really just a matter of perception. But that’s not the whole story. They are actually having a pretty good year, particularly post-inauguration. All the networks have suffered some falloff from January, but Fox has retained more of their recent gains than have their competitors. I can only offer some informed speculation as to why that would be.

First, Fox has more new programming that may be piquing the interests of their viewers. The new programs include a retooled Hannity, minus Colmes, and Glenn Beck’s Acute Paranoia Revue. Beck has found his home at Fox. His ratings have significantly increased over what he had at HLN, and he has also improved the time period he fills on Fox. As for Hannity, dumping Colmes was obviously popular amongst the Foxian pod people. It’s just that much less non-approved, pseudo-liberal noise they have to sit through.

Secondly, by heating up the aggressive tone, Fox has fashioned a hearth around which despondent conservatives can huddle. In 2006 they suffered the loss of both houses of congress. Now they have lost the presidency as well – and to what they view as an unpatriotic, Muslim, elitist, intent on driving the nation to Socialism in a Toyota hybrid. So now they congregate in the warm red glow of the Fox News logo that provides them the comfort that comes from numbing propaganda and the righteous smiting of perceived enemies.

This doubling down on rancor has had mixed results for Fox. While it endeared them to their base, and those they could frighten into submission, it also cost them dearly on a broader financial scale. The stock of Fox News parent, News Corp, is down 70% for the last 52 weeks. To be sure, the economy, particularly for media companies, was difficult, to put it mildly. But News Corp competitors Time Warner, Disney, and even the Washington Post were only down in the 45-55% range. News Corp suffered its worst loss ever of over $6.4 billion. And going forward, they advised Wall Street that income will decline another 30% for fiscal 2009.

In examining the reasons that Fox would perform so much worse than similar enterprises, one would have to consider the possibility that people have become disgusted with the obvious one-sided manipulation and the non-stop, phony news alerts that are Fox’s shock in trade. But I believe that it would also be fair to conclude that the direct actions taken against Fox News by Democrats last year are at least partially responsible for Fox’s inordinately more severe decline. The ratings disparities year over year document the effect that a sustained campaign of snubbery can produce.

Starve The BeastWith the stepped up efforts of Fox to sling ever more buckets of mud, it is more imperative now than ever that Democrats act affirmatively in their best interests. They must resist the siren call of televised glory and begin to discriminate between those who are fair practitioners of journalism and those who seek only to engage in slander and slime. In two previous installments of my Starve The Beast series (part 1 / part 2), I described how complicity with Fox News is not merely a waste of time, but is demonstrably harmful. This is even more true today, as the evidence above illustrates. The message that Democrats and other progressives must take to heart with all deliberateness and determination is: STAY THE HELL OFF OF FOX NEWS! Since it hurts us when we appear and it hurts them when we don’t, the way forward is crystal clear. It makes absolutely no sense to lay down before lions who are determined to devour you.

Now, I don’t want to approach this from a purely negative standpoint. While constructing a united front in opposition to Fox News is an absolute necessity, there are some positive steps that can be taken as well. Other news organizations must be pressured to present a more balanced picture of current events. And, where possible, true liberal voices must gain access to the televised public square. Media Matters long ago documented the imbalance of conservatives and Republicans on the Sunday news programs. That ideological discrepancy has continued apace since Obama’s inauguration. Now it’s time to do something about it. It’s time to make a case for TV to offer a more equitable representation of liberal views – the views of the majority, the winners.

Political activism has always been shaped in part by access to polling. It is an irreplaceable asset for anyone managing a campaign for a candidate or an issue. Similarly, TV survey data is critical in analyzing media performance and prospects. This data is distinct from conventional polling. Remember, networks don’t care about the public. They care about a subset of the public that is attractive to their customers. And their customers are not viewers – they are advertisers. While there are many sources for political data, there are few for media data – and most of those are press releases from vested corporate interests. There is little that we can do with ratings data that has already been massaged to advantage one particular party.

If progressives want to have some influence on programming, they must be able to anchor their arguments with original research and facts. For this reason, it is no longer enough for sites like Media Matters or Talking Points Memo or Daily Kos or News Corpse to merely document right-wing media abuses. If we want to help shape the editorial direction of the Conventional Media, we have to offer authoritative presentations to map a path to bigger audiences and ratings victories. We need to speak to the needs of the news providers and give them a business case for adopting a truly balanced programming model. To do this we need access to the raw data that is at the heart of television marketing.

So who amongst the lefty netroots will step forward and subscribe to Nielsen Media Research broadcast and cable data? I’m going to rule out News Corpse because I can’t afford it. But I do have 14 years of experience in media research and would be willing to help produce analyses and presentations. Just as progressive authors and bloggers offer informed advice to advance political goals, we need to be able to make a persuasive, market-based case for the sort of programming reform that we want to see. We need to be able to show the networks that it is in their interest, financially and ethically, to develop programming that is honest and in keeping with the principles of an engaged and probing press. We need to be able to counter the false impressions relentlessly pushed by faux news enterprises that tout themselves as the popular voice of the nation. It seems that a day does not go by that Bill O’Reilly doesn’t boast about his ratings. The funny thing is that he also condemns the source of those ratings with the delusional paranoia that only he can muster:

“The bottom line on this is there may be some big-time cheating going on in the ratings system, and we hope the feds will investigate. Any fraud in the television rating system affects all Americans.”

So O’Reilly thinks that the system he so proudly cites for affirmation of his massive popularity, is also engaging in big-time cheating for the benefit of his foes. If he’s right, and Nielsen data is not to be trusted when they report that his competition is catching up, than why should we trust it when it reports his success. In truth, the only cheating going on is on the part of the self-promoting networks and the egomaniacal personalities they employ. It is their selective and misleading interpretations that are distorting the reality of viewer behavior.

Suffice it to say that we would be in a much better position to dispute the spin that’s being peddled if we had access to unfiltered Nielsen data. We could mine that data to develop solutions and strategies to present to news programmers. Then we may begin to have some influence over news programming, personalities, and content.

This is as important an endeavor for progressives as the strategies we promote for politicians. I would argue that it’s more important. Especially in a media environment where prominent news enterprises are openly fomenting a near-militaristic antagonism to our representatives and our values.

Changing Channels: Fox News In the Age Of Obama

Posted by on January 20, 2009 at 4:24 pm. 3 Comments :

In 1996 Rupert Murdoch hired Roger Ailes, a Republican media consultant, to build a new 24 hour cable news network. Fox News immediately went to work to disparage Democrats and liberals. They spent their early years mired in debt, losing $80-90 million annually. It was only Murdoch’s deep pockets that kept them out of bankruptcy. Still, they had some strategic success as they badgered Bill Clinton with Whitewater and Lewinsky, and they corralled Republican and evangelical voters so that George Bush and Karl Rove could reach them more easily.

However, it was during the Bush years that Fox News began to outperform the cable competition. CNN, HLN, and the launch of MSNBC diluted the non-rightist audience giving Fox a plurality of viewers and bragging rights for ratings victories. Fox enjoyed first shots at interviews and scoops from the administration and Congressional Republicans. That brought them greater influence and gratitude from the halls of power. In addition, the White House kept its TVs tuned to Fox, as well as those at Camp David, the Crawford ranch, and even on Air Force One. Vice-President Dick Cheney even had a travel directive that required that “all televisions [be] tuned to Fox News.” Woe to those staffers who failed in that duty.

There may never have been (and hopefully never again will be) such a close relationship between a news organization and a presidential administration. In the end, they were even trading places as if they were merely different departments of the same enterprise: When presidential advisor Karl Rove moved out of the White House to become a Fox News contributor, Fox anchor Tony Snow moved in to become Bush’s press secretary.

Going forward, Fox will find themselves on a new frontier. It is highly improbable that they will be the exclusive broadcaster in the White House of Barack Obama. Although, I certainly hope that the new administration will pay close attention to the spew emanating from Fox, I don’t expect them to be in cahoots. Murdoch and company are definitely going to lose some of their clout. There will be a new Chairman at the FCC, and a new position for a White House Technology advisor. These will be knowledgeable and independent people who will serve the public interest – for a change. Here is a sampling of the views of Fox News, and Big Media in general, from some senior members of the new administration:

President Obama: “In recent years, we have witnessed unprecedented consolidation in our traditional media outlets. Large mergers and corporate deals have reduced the number of voices and viewpoints in the media marketplace.”

Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State Designate: “There have been a lot of media consolidations in the last several years, and it is quite troubling. The fact is, most people still get their news from television, from radio, even from newspapers. If they’re all owned by a very small group of people – and particularly if they all have a very similar point of view – it really stifles free speech.”

Eric Holder, Attorney General Designate: “With the mainstream media somewhat cowered by conservative critics, and the conservative media disseminating the news in anything but a fair and balanced manner, and you know what I mean there, the means to reach the greatest number of people is not easily accessible.”

More President Obama: “I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls. If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me, right? Because the way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?”

This can’t be good news for Fox News. But the network seems to be aware of the shifting landscape and has been preparing for battle. They signed new long-term contracts with Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity. They axed Hannity’s foil, Alan Colmes. They hired reinforcements like Mike Huckabee, Glenn Beck, and Judith Miller. Clearly they see trouble ahead and are responding by stocking their armory with ever more weapons of mass deception.

Unfortunately for Fox, forecasts are not rosy for the disinformation station. They are consistently the slowest growing cable news network, particularly in the all-important 25-54 demographic. They have the oldest skewing cable news audience. They are facing stiffer competition than ever, with the surging Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow’s record-breaking debut. The Fox News ratings crown was once unassailable. Today, while still maintaining their first place average, they often come in second and occasionally third. That was unthinkable two short years ago.

As for their future prospects, it is difficult to make a case for Fox to be optimistic. In addition to their recent ratings woes, they are entering a period wherein the American public may not appreciate a network that is hostile to a new president who is held in high regard. Obama is beginning his term with an 80% approval rating. Of course, that won’t last, and Fox will surely seek to shorten Obama’s honeymoon. But contrary to some media analysts who suggest that an adversarial relationship with Washington will benefit Fox, the truth is that Fox experienced its strongest growth amidst the friendliness of Bush years. This suggests that it is not simply drama and controversy that propelled Fox (although that is their preferred programming model), but that having powerful political allies helped them to succeed. When looked at objectively, that shouldn’t surprise anyone. When has having powerful political allies ever been a disadvantage?

Nevertheless, Fox is pursuing the path of most hostility, as evidenced by their new schedule. For further evidence note the response by Fox News commentators following Obama’s inaugural speech. Brit Hume’s first comments were to find passages that might please the right. Chris Wallace actually speculated that the flubbed oath of office (due to Chief Justice Roberts mangling the text) might mean that Obama isn’t really president (Let the conspiracy emails begin). Glenn Beck spent the whole hour of his second show on Fox heaping scorn on Obama. And while Rush Limbaugh isn’t technically on Fox, he is a charter member of the same ideological fraternity, and he has published a long dissertation on why he hopes Obama fails. These guys aren’t wasting any time.

This is just a preview of what we have to look forward to. The influence of Fox News is bound to decline. The Obama camp would be justified in giving Fox a cold shoulder. Fox deserves it for their brazen partisanship and for failing the test of responsible journalism. Other networks should now get some exclusives and scoops. And the more that this historic administration ignores Fox, the less relevant they will be.

We will now see Fox revert to the behavior of an injured wild beast that becomes even more ornery and more dangerous. We see it already. It’s important that we keep an eye on this threat, as it is not retreating to its lair. But it is retreating in the hearts and minds of the American people, and for that we should feel some sense of relief.

MSNBC Celebrates Strongest 2008 Growth

Posted by on January 2, 2009 at 4:50 pm. 9 Comments :

Once again, MSNBC has demonstrated its dominance over the stodgy CNN and the rightist snake oil of Fox News. MSNBC’s programming grew more than twice as much as Fox during 2008:

The fact that this was an election year raised the numbers of all of the players, but in the end Fox took its usual place at the bottom of the scale of growth. On the other hand, MSNBC was the only network to finish the year with more viewers post-election than their average for the year. That’s because their rate of increase far exceeded what was given back after November 4, when audiences predictably declined.

As the new year kicks off, the battle for cable news supremacy will only heat up. MSNBC will continue to rely on of its powerhouse one-two punch of Keith Olbermann’s Countdown and the Rachel Maddow Show. Both programs continue to drive the network’s growth. CNN is sticking with the status quo. Their schedule is little changed for the year, with the exception of adding Campbell Brown, who hasn’t really made her presence known.

Fox News, however, is making several changes that seem to be geared to digging an even deeper conservative hole. This year saw the hiring of right-wing stalwarts like Karl Rove, Judith Miller, and Mike Huckabee, as well as Foxocrats and Obama opponents Lanny Davis and Howard Wolfson. In addition to that, they are losing Alan Colmes and debuting what they call a new “pure” Sean Hannity solo show. I’m sure they are happy to have filtered out the contaminants. Hannity also signed a multimillion dollar contract renewal, as did Bill O’Reilly. Brett Baier, a reliable Fox ideologue, is succeeding Brit Hume as anchor of their signature news program, Special Report. And later this month will see the premiere of Glenn Beck’s new program on the network for which he was born to work. His obnoxious, immature, fact-free squealing will fit right in on Fox.

These uber-conservative reinforcements called in by Fox News suggest that they are preparing for a new offensive directed at the incoming administration of Barack Obama. It’s hard to see any other justification for such a hardening of their right flank when political winds are shifting in a more centrist, post-partisan direction. Consequently, in the new year, Democrats and progressives had better be vigilant and prepare for an onslaught of contemptuous attacks from the Murdochian Empire. Their troops are amassed on the border and the rising sun is illuminating a determined and disturbing red dawn.

Post-Election Cable News Ratings: Good News For MSNBC

Posted by on November 19, 2008 at 4:56 pm. 3 Comments :

The presidential election was a boon for the news business, especially cable TV news. All three players boosted their year-ago numbers, but it was not an equal opportunity affair.

Network Prev Week +/- Prev Year +/-
Fox -30 +40
CNN -58 +36
MSNBC +40 +143

Once again, MSNBC delivered far stronger growth numbers than any of its competitors. And once again, that growth was driven by Keith Olbermann’s Countdown and the Rachel Maddow Show. MSNBC was the only cable news net to close the post-election week with more viewers than the prior week.

It’s still hard for MSNBC to get any respect, though. The article linked above from Media Week sports the headline, “No Post-Election Slump for Fox News.” Without closely reading the article, one might think that Fox was the big beneficiary of the campaign season. But the numbers show a completely different story. Which just goes to show you, even media reporting about the media can’t be trusted. My headline is far more accurate.

And The Winner Is … Keith Olbermann’s Countdown

Posted by on November 4, 2008 at 11:29 am. 11 Comments :

It has been a long campaign, but the tally is finally in. Last week Keith Olbermann’s Countdown beat the O’Reilly Factor every day in the key 25-54 audience demographic. Here is the five day average for the primetime cable news programs:

Program Viewers
Countdown 1180
Rachel Maddow 1063
O’Reilly Factor 1020
Hannity & Not Hannity 1011
Larry King 631
Campbell Brown 533

I have been reporting on the performance of the cable news programs for almost three years. Most of that time I have made the case that Fox News is an old world dinosaur that is consistently underperforming the competition. Although it was also the number one news network, it was either losing viewers or growing slower than CNN and MSNBC. This year alone saw year-over-year gains of 70% for MSNBC, 66% for CNN, but only 36% for Fox. The trends all pointed to an eventual takedown which I predicted would occur before the end of this year.

Well, it’s November, and my prediction has been validated. There have been multiple occasions in the past few months where MSNBC beat Fox intermittently. The Foxbots all clung to the belief that these were irrelevant blips that would amount to nothing. But now Countdown took an entire week of regular programming (meaning there were no guest hosts or preemptions). This is as clear a signal as there can be that the landscape is shifting.

In addition to Olbermann’s success, the new Rachel Maddow show burst out of the gate to great acclaim and ratings. She beat Fox’s Hannity & Not Hannity 3 out of 5 nights, and took the whole week prize as well. For the week, the one-two punch of Olbermann and Maddow delivered a nightly win to MSNBC on 3 out of 5 nights, and a tie for the full week in primetime.

As always, time will tell if these numbers endure. But they affirm the audience migration away from Fox News. Plus Fox has a much smaller percentage of viewers in the 25-54 demo (27%) than either CNN (38%) or MSNBC (42%). This means that advertisers will drift away from Fox’s older skewing audience. But it also means that the next generation of news consumers is forming their bond now with with other networks, particularly MSNBC.

The Race Tightens – For Cable News That Is

Posted by on October 29, 2008 at 1:44 am. 3 Comments :

The election season has been a boon to the cable TV biz. All three of the news networks have enjoyed higher ratings. But the distribution of the audience expansion has not been exactly equal.

Fox News, the long-time leader, retains its position and moves up from fourth to second. CNN has a respectable showing by bumping up four steps from ninth to fifth. But MSNBC pulls off the master stroke by leaping from twenty-third to ninth, marking its first appearance in the top ten.

Much of the strong performance of MSNBC has to be credited to their powerhouse prime time lineup grounded by Keith Olbermann’s Countdown. But the real difference was made by the launch of Rachel Maddow’s new program, which has burst onto the air to great acclaim and audience appreciation. Her program seems to have revitalized the whole prime time schedule. As a result MSNBC is more frequently having nights like last night where the three hour block from 7:00pm to 10:00pm was number one, beating both CNN and Fox.

It is because of performance like this that Bill O’Reilly is whining about the Nielsen ratings being fixed. He just can’t bring himself to accept that more people are tuning him out and Olbermann in. To O’Reilly, any evidence that he is not the popular icon he imagines himself to be, must have been forged by his enemies who conspire against him from their underground lairs. As for Maddow knocking out both Larry King and Hannity and Colmes, after just a few weeks on the air, there is little precedent for such instant success.

The writing is on the wall. With the three news networks all bunched much closer together, Fox News is becoming ever more hysterical as their agenda is being rejected by America. So they try harder to push ridiculous fabrications, but the result is they make themselves look even sillier and they lose more viewers. In the past few months they’ve gone from calling Barack Obama a Muslim to branding him a Socialist. Sometime between now and election day, look for Fox to reveal that Obama and the Boston Strangler were never photographed together. Hmmm…Coincidence?

Glenn Beck To Suck On Fox News

Posted by on October 17, 2008 at 10:54 am. 46 Comments :

In what may seem like an obvious and long overdue match up, Glenn Beck will be leaving CNN for Fox News early next year. This should be good news for CNN because Beck’s show has performed terribly on the their Headline News Network (HLN). It is consistently in last place amongst its cable news competitors, and is the lowest rated program on HLN’s primetime schedule.

Despite bragging about how Beck had improved the time period for HLN, Beck has actually lagged other programs on the network. Nancy Grace pulls in twice as many viewers as Beck. All news networks experienced growth this year due to the presidential election. However, while Grace increased her audience 100%, Beck managed a paltry by comparison 34% gain over his third quarter performance last year in the key 25-54 year old demographic.

By it’s embrace of Beck, Fox News is providing more evidence (as if any were needed) of their intransigent partisanship. If they were smart, they would offer a show to Tanya Acker (who I love) or Bob Beckel (not so much) just to say they have one program from a left of center perspective.

So what is Fox getting for their trouble? They are getting the most ignorant and obnoxious host on cable news. They are getting a perennial ratings loser. They are getting an unrepentant racist provocateur. They are getting an ego-centric ideologue that CNN originally described as someone “that could siphon viewers from Bill O’Reilly, Joe Scarborough and other conservative hosts.” Now he won’t need to as he and O’Reilly will be able to promote each other. There is no question that Beck will feel more at home at Fox. In a comment responding to his new contract he even admitted that Fox News will be a better fit because…

“I’m kind of an island over at Headline. It’s kind of difficult because I’ve got to bring my own audience over to Headline.”

Well he won’t have to do that for Fox, because it comes complete with its own congregation of rightist believers. That will serve as an advantage to Beck who will have access to a much larger and better trained audience than he had at HLN. Plus, he was about to lose his nightly repeat broadcast to a rerun of CNN’s Lou Dobbs. That undoubtedly had some impact on his decision to jump ship. However, his Fox show will air earlier in the day at a time that has lower HUT (homes using TV) levels, in a time period that has featured previous losers like John Gibson and Laura Ingraham – both now canceled.

The open question now is, “What will CNN do with the vacant time slot?” One option would be to return to their original mission of providing summaries of breaking news events. But since the ratings trends favor personality-driven talk, they will likely seek a new, opinionated host.

This would be a good time to point out that CNN has never had a single program hosted by a liberal. Not one. But they have cycled through multiple conservative hosts. They may want to take note that MSNBC is the presently the fastest growing cable news network thanks to Keith Olbermann’s Countdown and the newest talk show sensation, Rachel Maddow. There are numerous progressive personalities available if CNN chose to demonstrate some market savvy as well as some content diversity. They could even reward their own Jack Cafferty with a promotion. He is wildly popular and, while he’s not exactly a liberal, he connects with everyone who is fed up with whatever status quo is at play.

Will CNN do the right/smart thing? Judging by their past I would not bet on it. But they have an opportunity and perhaps they may not squander it if they get some encouragement from viewers. CNN’s email: CNN / Headline News

Update: CNN has announced that Jane Velez Mitchell, beginning tonight, will serve as the interim host for the time period Beck is vacating. It is notable that CNN is pulling Beck from the schedule the day after revealing his agreement with Fox News. Beck’s contract doesn’t expire until February. Perhaps CNN is upset at Beck’s departure (though they should be grateful). More likely they see no reason to permit a future competitor to continue to promote himself on their air.

Velez-Mitchell is an unknown quantity so far as political commentary is concerned. She has done a lot of court reporting (i.e. Michael Jackson) and is a frequent substitute for Nancy Grace. She is also an out lesbian (hello Rachel), a vegan, and an opponent of animal cruelty, for what it’s worth. Last year she contributed $800.00 to the presidential campaign of fellow vegan Dennis Kucinich.