{"id":814,"date":"2008-02-27T21:16:02","date_gmt":"2008-02-28T05:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=814"},"modified":"2008-08-23T16:26:26","modified_gmt":"2008-08-23T23:26:26","slug":"fox-news-still-first-in-being-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=814","title":{"rendered":"Fox News – Still First In Being Last"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CableOnce again<\/a>, Fox News brings up the rear<\/a> in the cable news-stakes. With an increase in total viewers of just 16% from February 2007 to February 2008, Fox trailed MSNBC (up 62%) and CNN (up 133%) by wide margins. CNN’s numbers may have been inflated by an unusually large audience for its debate telecast. But that would not account for the bulk of the disparity. Note that MSNBC’s increase occurred without any such special event programming.<\/p>\n

This is becoming so redundant that I think I’ll just quote myself from the last ratings report<\/a> I wrote:<\/p>\n

“For those seeking an explanation for the disparity between Fox and the rest of the news purveyors, you need look no further than the content and style for which Fox has become famous. The influence of rightists in the government and the media is dissipating. As it does so, the noise level on Fox News is swelling to an earsplitting shriek. They are descending (and condescending) into a desperation fueled by their own crumbling credibility. They are finding it increasingly difficult to lure fair-minded commentators and public figures to appear on their tainted air. The refusal of Democrats to participate in Fox-sponsored debates is having a real impact on both the network’s performance and their perception as the Republican house organ. That effort must continue and broaden to include ANY appearance by Democrats or progressives (see Starve The Beast<\/a>) The result of this cold shoulder is an over-reliance by Fox on plainly biased personalities like their newest contributors, Tony Snow, Rick Santorum, and Karl Rove. I expect we will also be seeing a lot more of Dick Morris, Ann Coulter, and Bill Kristol, as the Foxians resort to just interviewing one another.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Still true. But wait…There’s more!<\/p>\n

I did an analysis<\/a> of the televised debates this election cycle that reveals some interesting trends. Since April 26, 2007, there have been 30 debates split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. Four of the top 5 rated broadcasts were Democratic debates. Fox News had only one debate in the top 10. All of the Fox debates were Republican affairs as the Democrats have sworn off debating on the network. That strategy appears to have paid off in a couple of significant ways. First, it denied Fox the opportunity to cast more of its slime onto Democrats. Second, Fox missed out on the higher revenues they would have received from the more popular Democratic debates.<\/p>\n

It’s a win\/win.<\/p>\n

Stop The Presses<\/a>: Bill O’Reilly is patting himself and his network on the back for their ratings performance:<\/p>\n

“…just about everybody else on FNC had a good month, because we are patriots.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If they are patriots because of their paltry 16% gain, then CNN and MSNBC must be candidates for sainthood with national holidays pending. I sure hope I’m not in the vicinity when his ego bursts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once again, Fox News brings up the rear in the cable news-stakes. With an increase in total viewers of just 16% from February 2007 to February 2008, Fox trailed MSNBC (up 62%) and CNN (up 133%) by wide margins. CNN’s numbers may have been inflated by an unusually large audience for its debate telecast. But […]<\/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":[42,33,22],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-ratings","tag-cnn","tag-fox-news","tag-msnbc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-d8","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":48789,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=48789","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":0},"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":1009,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1009","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":1},"title":"Starve The Beast: Appetite For Distortion","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/9\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Almost exactly one year ago I published a comprehensive examination of the futility of appearances on Fox News by Democrats and progressives: Starve The Beast. The thrust of the article argued that... \"Every time one of our representatives appears on Fox, they are setting back our agenda. They are not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37227,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=37227","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":2},"title":"Trump Hypes Fox News Ratings While Ignoring the Success of Rachel Maddow and MSNBC","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/6\/2018","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Rachel Maddow","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/maddow-trump-baby.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/maddow-trump-baby.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/maddow-trump-baby.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8900,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=8900","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":3},"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":[]},{"id":1320,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1320","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":4},"title":"Don’t Believe The Hype About Fox News Ratings","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/1\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"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\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":855,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=855","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":5},"title":"Fox News No Longer Number One","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/2\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Continuing a long pattern of decline, Fox News once again underperforms its competitors. The first quarter of a presidential election year can generally be expected to boost viewership for news networks. For CNN and MSNBC this has been markedly apparent. For Fox News...not so much. As a result of the\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\/814","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=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}