Confirmed: News consumers don't care about Fox
October 30, 2009 9:05 am ET by Eric Boehlert
Earlier this week we reported on how the mainstream media, and especially cable news, had gone bonkers over the dispute between the White House and Fox News. Because let's face it, when journalists are somehow involved in a story, it's suddenly very, very important.
In fact, according to Pew research data, the cablers last week devoted three times as much coverage to the Fox News story as they did to the unfolding swine flu outbreak, which has killed more than 1,000 Americans to date.
Well now the other shoe dropped with yet more Pew data. it shows that among news consumers, nobody cares about the Fox News story, but people are obsessed with following the latest on the swine flue.
How's that for a massive disconnect?
And when I say nobody cares about the Fox News story, that's not really an exaggeration. According to Pew, less than 1 percent of Americans said that the Fox News dispute was the news topic followed most closely last week, compared to 32 percent who said the swine flu was the on top of their news radar.
To recap, by a margin of 32: 1, consumers were interested in swine flu vs. Fox News. But on cable TV last week by a margin of 3:1, Fox News took precedence over the swine flu.
Again, how's that for a massive disconnect?
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Nah.
Television news consumers watch the big three networks, not Fox.
Fine. Cable television news consumers care more about what Fox has to say then what's spewed by their liberal cable news counterparts.
Actually, NO. Fox News has a higher "average" viewership.
The other cable news networks, CNN, etc, have higher total viewership. Fox just has a core audience that basically never changes the channel.
These ratings pretty much speak for themselves. Day and night, Fox far surpasses its competitors. ..
CNN/HLN: 99.098 million HHs
CNBC: 96.78 million HHs
FNC: 96.26 million HHs
MSNBC: 92.64 million HHs
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
Sorry, but he's right about the ratings. FoxNews typically gets more viewers than CNN, HLN and MSNBC combined. That's pretty solid across all their shows.
Now, sometimes, like before last year's election, MSNBC got more, or close to more, of the big demographic they try to get.
And we all know that ratings don't really matter at all anyway - it's all a popularity contest, but it is true that FoxNews gets more viewers than the other 3 combined.
For example, total viewers during the day for 10/27
FoxNews - 1.439 million
CNN - .451 million
MSNBC - .445 million
HLN - .359 million
Total of the other 3? 1.255 million
But, as consistently reflected in Fox's ratings, television news consumers certainly "care" about what Fox has to say.
Should be modified to say:
But, as consistently reflected in Fox's ratings, Fox news consumers certainly "care" about what Fox has to say.
Fox News is availabe to 102 million households, of which, just over 1 million, on average tune in. Ooh, 1% of the people who could watch.
Fox ratings claim is based on the "average" amount of people watching at any given time. If you actually compare total viewers, people who tune in during the day, Fox actually trails the rest of the pack.
Basically, Fox News has a core audience who never change the channel, where as the other news channels have more viewers who tune in long enough to get the news, and then move on.
Fox is an entertainment channel, comfort food for misinformed old paranoids. People who want "news" from the teevee generally tune in for brief periods to get updates on current issue. Fox zombies are more likely to keep the hypnotic blaring propaganda on for hours.
Fox viewers don't tune in to learn anything, they tune in to freshen up their feelings and beliefs. It's like a right wing nut tune-up, or a dose of dope.
An area of concern is that FoxNews is nothing but an extension of the GOP along with the amount of lies and misinnformation they spout daily.
There isn't a conservative or democratic truth there's only truth.
The right has built an infrastructure that is a danger to an informed populace and democracy. Had Richard Nixon had today's media environment he would never have resigned.
The right has successfully whitewashed the Reagan legacy. Reagan has the record for the most convictions of administration offcials in US History.
Reagan also raised taxes 7 times (of course the right doesn't tell wingnuts that to avoid bursting their little bubbles)
Bush /Cheney violated multiple federal laws yet you'd be hard pressed to know
I haven't had the chance to see a good cross section of MSNBC viewers, not enough to give as informed and scientific a summary as I can regarding the Fox viewers, anyway.
I would guess many are like me, as I turn on MSNBC pretty often in the evenings;People who are busy doing other things, making dinner, working, and flip on the tv to get a little current events or political opinion when they don't have the time to go to more in-depth sources.
TV news is mostly entertainment,but I would say the difference between the one who turns on MSNBC vs. Fox is a little more connected to reality.
I watch Fox often as well, but not for any type of "news", just to see what sort of propaganda is being shoveled out to counteract the actual news.