Fox's Failed Attempt To Bash Clinton And Other Honey Boo Boos
Written by Melody Johnson
Published
Fox falsely claimed that as many people watched an episode of TLC's reality show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo as viewed former President Bill Clinton's September 5 Democratic Convention speech. In reality, more than 10 times as many people watched the Clinton speech.
Fox, in their haste to make President Clinton look less influential than a former Toddlers and Tiaras contestant, got the story completely wrong. In fact, Clinton's convention speech drew 25.1 million viewers across the seven networks that carried his speech. By contrast, Honey Boo Boo drew 2.4 million viewers. Only if you compare Honey Boo Boo's ratings with Clinton's ratings among the 18-49 demographic on one cable news network, CNN, did the two tie each other.
The total numbers for the evening as provided by Nielsen showed that not only did total coverage on all networks for Clinton far surpass the ratings for Honey Boo Boo as well as the ratings for Paul Ryan's speech from the same night of the week during the Republican National Convention, they also beat the ratings for the second half of the opening game in the NFL regular season.
But you'd never know that at Fox. Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson declared that Honey Boo Boo “one-upped” Clinton and that the two “tied in viewers with 2.4 million.”