{"id":107,"date":"2006-02-28T22:58:37","date_gmt":"2006-03-01T05:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=107"},"modified":"2006-08-29T22:03:32","modified_gmt":"2006-08-30T05:03:32","slug":"fox-ratings-in-free-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=107","title":{"rendered":"FOX Ratings In Free Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The just released <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mediabistro.com\/tvnewser\/original\/feb06vs05.pdf\">February ratings (pdf)<\/a> for cable news networks tell a tale that is decidedly downbeat for Fox News. In a comparison with February 2005, the numbers for every network are up <em>except<\/em> for Fox.<\/p>\n<p>This may come as some surprise to Bill O&#8217;Reilly who, in a moment of empathy for his competition at MSNBC, <a href=\"http:\/\/mediamatters.org\/items\/200602240008\">started a petition<\/a> to replace Keith Olbermann with former MSNBC host, Phil Donahue. O&#8217;Reilly felt sorry for what he said was the net&#8217;s poor performance. Never mind that Olbermann&#8217;s show drew more viewers than MSNBC&#8217;s conservative hosted shows. And I certainly doubt that Bill was just being indignant because Keith was being mean to him on a nightly basis. Now Bill has to swallow the difficult truth that Keith&#8217;s viewership is growing while his own is shrinking. In the key demographic group of viewers aged 25-54, the Total Day ratings for MSNBC rose 47% while Fox declined -13%.<\/p>\n<p>Fox&#8217;s Prime Time erosion was even greater at -21%. In fact, in every hour in the daypart, from 3:00pm till midnight, Fox numbers were lower. This is a distinction that only Fox, of the five nets surveyed, was able to achieve.<\/p>\n<p>The largest decline was suffered by Greta Van Susteren&#8217;s On The Record (-22%), followed closely by O&#8217;Reilly (-21%). Hannity &#038; What&#8217;s His Name took the Bronze (-17%). Of the MSNBC programs opposite those losers, Olbermann&#8217;s Countdown was the biggest gainer (55%), which I&#8217;m sure doesn&#8217;t bother O&#8217;Reilly at all.<\/p>\n<p>The growing feud between Bill and Keith is something unique in commercial television. It has taken on a personal tone that I can&#8217;t recall witnessing before. There is, however, a difference in style. While Olbermann is merciless in his mockery, he sticks to commenting on the substance of O&#8217;Reilly&#8217;s program and the stupid or demonstrably false things that O&#8217;Reilly says. Billy, on the other hand, seems to respond only by pointing out that more people watch his show than Olbermann&#8217;s. You know, the <em>2 million flies<\/em> defense. But if O&#8217;Reilly isn&#8217;t careful, he may soon not have even that to crow about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The just released February ratings (pdf) for cable news networks tell a tale that is decidedly downbeat for Fox News. In a comparison with February 2005, the numbers for every network are up except for Fox. This may come as some surprise to Bill O&#8217;Reilly who, in a moment of empathy for his competition at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-ratings"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-1J","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":936,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=936","url_meta":{"origin":107,"position":0},"title":"The Rise Up Of Countdown","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/3\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Another month, another dismal performance by Fox News who, once again, wins the trophy for \"Slowest Growing Cable News Network.\" The redundancy of this news compels me to search for some other ratings story so as not to bore myself. Fortunately, I've found a couple. For most of the past\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1121,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1121","url_meta":{"origin":107,"position":1},"title":"And The Winner Is &#8230; Keith Olbermann&#8217;s Countdown","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/4\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"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: ProgramViewers Countdown1180 Rachel Maddow1063 O'Reilly Factor1020 Hannity & Not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1109,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1109","url_meta":{"origin":107,"position":2},"title":"The Race Tightens &#8211; For Cable News That Is","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/29\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4564,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4564","url_meta":{"origin":107,"position":3},"title":"May Cable News Ratings: Fox News Gets Stomped","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/1\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Ratings for cable news for the month of May 2011, bring bad news for Fox News. In the key demographic group of 25-54 year-olds, Fox was alone in declining during the primetime hours. This was a really bad month for Fox News which lost viewers in the demo for every\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34156,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=34156","url_meta":{"origin":107,"position":4},"title":"MSNBC&#8217;s Rachel Maddow Just Beat Fox News and Every Other Primetime Program On TV","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/14\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"For several weeks now Rachel Maddow's MSNBC program has been picking up steam. Last Monday she rose into the ratings top ten in her time period. And that momentum continued for the rest of the week. As a result, she just snagged a victory over every primetime program for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Rachel Maddow Donald Trump","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/maddow-trump-russian-connection.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/maddow-trump-russian-connection.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/maddow-trump-russian-connection.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4582,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4582","url_meta":{"origin":107,"position":5},"title":"Jon Stewart&#8217;s Daily Show Is More Popular Than Fox News","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/4\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The recent May ratings data revealed the weakness of Fox News, particularly when compared to their competitors. But Fox is also getting whipped by an old adversary about whom their CEO, Roger Ailes, once said... \"He openly admits he's sort of an atheist and a socialist. [...] He hates conservative\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}