{"id":1630,"date":"2010-04-28T12:34:02","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T19:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1630"},"modified":"2017-02-10T07:21:54","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T15:21:54","slug":"fox-news-ratings-dive-american-iq-rebounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1630","title":{"rendered":"Fox News Ratings Dive: American IQ Rebounds"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FoxThe latest quarterly Nielsen ratings reveal a promising trend in cable news viewership. This has been a challenging time for all media and, while cable has been relatively stable, it has not been immune from a general advertising slump and softening audience.<\/p>\n

While all three of the major cable news networks suffered primetime declines, MSNBC held its audience best, losing only 6% in the past quarter. By comparison Fox News dropped three times as much (-19%), and CNN collapsed (-40%).<\/p>\n

CNN’s woes are not particularly surprising. They have utterly failed to define themselves in this era of advocacy journalism. Their approach to a middleground, news-centric broadcast is admirable, but poorly implemented. If they were truly interested in focusing on straight news, they would abandon the pretense of balancing every story on the basis of partisanship and instead balance it on the basis of truth. In other words, stop booking liars just to have a counter-argument. If one guest says the moon is a barren, rocky satellite, you do not need an opposing guest to assert that it’s lime Jello. Or if you do host the lime Jello spokesman, at least offer some post-debate analysis that makes it clear that the Jello argument is known to be false.<\/p>\n

MSNBC has benefited in an ironic way by not having had a meteoric rise. Their numbers have been depressed by poor cable coverage and placement on premium tiers. As a result, they have had less distance to fall. Their performance appears to be better on a relative basis simply by maintaining a steady course.<\/p>\n

More surprising is the precipitous drop at Fox News. They have been enjoying a surge in the past few years, even when their competition was hurting. For them to get hit so hard this quarter is a significant development. Fox has relied upon a fierce sense of loyalty on the part of their viewers to prop up their ratings. I have described it as something of cult (the Cult of Foxonality<\/a>) wherein Fox viewers are actually more devoted to the network than to any political party of philosophy. The ratings this quarter suggest that the hold that Fox has had on its audience is weakening.<\/p>\n

As evidence of Fox’s diminishing influence, take a look at their biggest star, Glenn Beck. He has lost fully one third<\/a> of his audience since the beginning of the year. Apparently people are tiring of his redundant, hyperbolic screeds pronouncing that half of the Obama administration are communists and the other half are Satanists. He may also have lost viewers when he called the President a racist and when he insulted Christians by warning them to flee their church if it practiced social justice.<\/p>\n

Beck has other problems as well. He has undoubtedly been hurt by an advertiser boycott that has seen a couple of hundred advertisers swear off his program. In the UK he is airing with no advertisers at all. In this environment, how long can Fox News justify keeping him on the schedule? They waved off the ad boycott by bragging about his ratings. With neither ads nor viewers, the only thing they have left is an unpopular clown act that is descending further into televangelism<\/a> with every episode.<\/p>\n

The dilemma for Fox News is complicated. From the start they have been on a mission to advance the conservative philosophy of their owner, Rupert Murdoch, and his henchman, Roger Ailes. Unfortunately for them, they have failed miserably in that regard. They threw everything they had at the Democrats and still lost control of Congress in 2006, lost the White House in 2008, and lost the health care debate in 2010. Despite their ratings dominance they have not been able to convert it to their electoral advantage. What happens when their ratings dominance is gone?<\/p>\n

The battle within the Fox executive suites will be one that pits the accountants against the ideologues. And let’s face it, in the rarefied air of Fox News, the accountants are toast. My money is on Fox News doubling down and expanding their partisan rhetoric. That’s what they’ve done in the past. In the months leading up to and following the Obama victory in 2008, Fox didn’t bother to recognize a national trend. Instead, they fortified their conservative flank by signing new long-term contracts with Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity. They axed Hannity’s foil, Alan Colmes. They hired reinforcements like Beck, Mike Huckabee, Karl Rove, Dana Perino, Judith Miller, and Sarah Palin. They are not the sort of competitors that back down in the face of adversity – or reason.<\/p>\n

If Fox does escalate the wingnut war, they are making a poor bet. They already own the franchise on rightist zealots and are unlikely to gain viewers in that demographic. More likely they can expect to see their ratings decline further. Americans are sick of the divisive ravings of partisan shills who have to resort to making things up in order to sway the debate.<\/p>\n

The good news is that since the audience for Fox News has declined, the collective IQ of the country has risen. OK, I made that up, but it seems entirely plausible. Fox News viewers have been shown to be notably less informed, or more misinformed, than the viewers of other networks or the public at large. So it stands to reason that the fewer people infected with Fox lies, the more intelligent we are as a nation. And going forward that can only be a boon to the development of public policy and to democracy itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest quarterly Nielsen ratings reveal a promising trend in cable news viewership. This has been a challenging time for all media and, while cable has been relatively stable, it has not been immune from a general advertising slump and softening audience. While all three of the major cable news networks suffered primetime declines, MSNBC […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_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":[1,684,6],"tags":[42,33,44,22,143,30],"class_list":["post-1630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-media-bias","category-ratings","tag-cnn","tag-fox-news","tag-glenn-beck","tag-msnbc","tag-roger-ailes","tag-rupert-murdoch"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-qi","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":15580,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=15580","url_meta":{"origin":1630,"position":0},"title":"Fox News Suffers Worst Ratings In Thirteen Years – And That’s Not Their Big Problem","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/30\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Go Fox Yourself","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/go-fox-yourself-seniors.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/go-fox-yourself-seniors.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/go-fox-yourself-seniors.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":962,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=962","url_meta":{"origin":1630,"position":1},"title":"Cable News Viewers: The Next Generation","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/2\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Ratings for the second quarter of 2008 are in and it has ceased to be news that Fox is the slowest growing cable news network: 2nd Quarter 2008 vs 2007 - 25-54 Network% Gain\/Loss MSNBC+46 CNN+22 Fox-2 Far more interesting are the trends that point to long term viewing patterns.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48789,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=48789","url_meta":{"origin":1630,"position":2},"title":"Hapless Hannity Mocks CNN’s Ratings While Ignoring His Own Downward Spiral","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/17\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The presidential election last November heralded real change for America. And it wasn't just by evicting Donald Trump from the White House. Almost immediately the Fox News audience cratered due to the network having bent to reality by recognizing that Joe Biden had decisively beaten Trump. In addition to Fox's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox News, Sean Hannity","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-hannity-drain.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-hannity-drain.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-hannity-drain.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1121,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1121","url_meta":{"origin":1630,"position":3},"title":"And The Winner Is … Keith Olbermann’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 "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36694,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=36694","url_meta":{"origin":1630,"position":4},"title":"MSNBC Has Biggest Black Prime Time Audience on Cable, Fox News Isn’t Even in the Top 10","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/9\/2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Last year was a banner year for MSNBC as it ratings surged to unprecedented new highs. Much of this was driven by the soaring popularity of Rachel Maddow, but the rest of the network's roster enjoyed similar success. Many of the programs achieved their highest ever ratings in 2017, a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox News MSNBC","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-racist-smears.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-racist-smears.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-racist-smears.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8900,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=8900","url_meta":{"origin":1630,"position":5},"title":"Fox News Is The Biggest Ratings Loser On Inauguration Day","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/22\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Monday's presidential inauguration was a television event that was heavily promoted by all of the networks covering it. But one network was conspicuously short of viewers during President Obama's speech and throughout the broadcast day. While overall viewing was down for all three cable news networks compared to 2009's inauguration,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","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\/1630","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=1630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33839,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630\/revisions\/33839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}