Other Networks' Election Loss Is Fox News's Big Gain

Washington Post ^ | 11/04/04 | Lisa de Moraes

[LS]

Agreed. It was ridiculous. No way any outstanding ballots were going to overturn Iowa, or Nevada, or New Mexico, and Barone knew it. I sensed he was really frustrated at not being able to say that.

[Colonel_Flagg]

Fox's graphics were more precise and easier to read with more info.

They also scrolled too quickly. I had a hard time identifying what race was being shown, where it was, and how many precincts had reported. Just a little slower would have been great.

[LS]

CNN's panel with Larry King was pathetic. There was a black guy (whom I've never seen before) who made sense (do I even have the right network?) But having King even on such a panel cost it credibility instantly. The dyed-blond chick was ok at times: Dee Dee was a partisan hack.

[twigs]

That I agree with. There was a lot of info there. But I like that they had the % of precincts reporting which other stations did not have--at least that I saw.

[JasonC]

If they had called it first for Bush they would double their audience...

[DK Zimmerman]

I was mostly on FNC, but bounced to CBS, ABC, and MSNBC.

I honestly felt FNC was as good or better than the others in terms of level of discussion and "freshness." Fox DID post Ohio first, followed by NBC, the others never did.

The single highest value of FNC was their graphics. They rolled through all states constantly, showing various race results.

As a counter example, CBS apparently didn't show ANY senate races in-progress at the bottom of the screen, only those they had declared...so to see/hear anything about SD/Daschle, you had to wait until they felt like talking about (and I never did hear them do that while I was on their channel).

I thought Cokie Roberts looked and sounded awful and even George Will didn't seem terribly involved. But again, maybe only during those brief periods I checked in.

The MSNBC women seemed to still be wearing fright makeup from halloween and only Joe Scarborough was worth a listen. IMO.

[carjic]

Thats what my wife and I were saying. It was a very boring broadcast for the first time. However last night I was out of town and stayed at a Courtyard. they only have CNN. It reminded me of how much I love FNC. I Emailed Marriott and they said blablabla... Oh well

[JohnnyZ]

I wonder what the Nielsen rating is for CBS on election day.

Even the Democrats don't watch CBS any more. The Kerry victory party (ha ha!) flipped between CNN, NBC, and ABC.

[Mr.Clark]

I thought FOX did a horrible job. I really liked the NBC coverage, say what you want about Russert, but the man knows how to handle a fast moving political story. Thought it was a good job by Brokaw as well.

[jackbill]

I was particularly displeased to see FNC's Chris Wallace continually push the "internals" of the fake exit polls. It was ridiculous.

[Ciexyz]

I watched Fox (not Fox News) and enjoyed Shep Smith. I briefly checked out the other MSM stations but abandoned them when their bias became evident.

[tjwmason]

Most of his work, starting in the evening, came at an hour of the clock where he is usually not on the air. He also worked until 3:00 a.m. EST.

You should try coverage of one of our elections. It's great fun, starts at 10 p.m. (when polls close); no predictions of individual races from exit polls, so waiting around until actual votes are counted (this being paper ballots, counted by hand) and seats declared. It goes on until 6 or 7 a.m., in a couple of elections when it's been close (such as 1974), they're still on at midday Friday. The number of bungled cues, and misreadings is enormous, and great fun (i.m.o.).

[douglas1]

ME TOO I kept watching and waiting for the left hand side of the screen to regester anything but 269 ,lost sleep made me want to strangle all of them.

[DocH]

I switched back and forth between FOX and MSNBC (Chrissy Matthews). I first tuned in to FOX and was surprised at how dour Hume and the rest were, which I thought was weak and unprofessional. Also, FOX's graphics and layout were naot as easy to look at and decifer as MSNBC's was, so I ended up spending more time watching MSNBC. Besides, when it started looking good for the President, I wanted to see the stammering and stuttering, and the "deer in the headlights" look on the faces of Chrissy and the rest! Then again, it was fun to see demonRAT whacko and "know-it-all" (Brit pissed her off by saying this to her - albeit in a joking way), Susan Estrich have a meltdown! What a raving BITCH! Altogether, I had a good time watching the returns until about 5:30 am, then a little sleep, and up at 7.

[henge]

I'd have to agree with you that NBC's election coverage was better than FNC's even though they were almost an hour late calling Ohio. Fox was a little late on calling Florida relative to NBC (weren't they?).

Brokaw was surprisingly well composed given the fact that he could probably sense the vote wasn't going Kerry's way as results started coming in.

I had to switch to CBS now and then for the pure comedy of watching Dan Rather fall apart (not that he ever had it together). Rather did the best he could to avoid telling his small audience that Kerry was in serious trouble. CBS didn't provide any real insight into Ohio until very late in the evening (after 2:00 a.m.) when Bradley started painting the grim picture for poor Dan. Dan seemed to have difficulty understanding Ed's analysis, which was pretty straightforward and easy to understand for most viewers.

[PattonReincarnated]

Question: For the 2008 or 2012 elections, will there still be any such thing as Broadcast News Networks?

I've thought about this several times in the last couple of days, primarily in the context of who are the biggest losers in this election season. There is a good potential that the MSM is the biggest loser. But we live in a capitalist country and supply and demand will ultimately rule. For instance, how many views will watch FoxNews if they had real conservatives. Imagine Rush Limbaugh replacing O'Reilly. Imagine Sean Hannity with out Colmes. Imagine anything other Gretta. The ratings for FoxNews would go through the roof. Concurrently, it would be the demise of CNN, CNBC, & PMSNBC. Unless, CNN, CNBC, & PMSNBC countered with better conservative host during prime-time. The same would be true for the traditional national evening news.

I guess this really doesn't directly answer your question. Let's say that Viacom can't get off its liberal agenda, then CBS may still have a news division, but far fewer people will watch it - fewer than today. What will the shareholders of Viacom do? I tell you one thing, I am certainly not going to buy Viacom stock for two reasons. 1.) They have a failing product 2.) I can't bring myself to buy a stock that aids a liberal agenda. I think it will ultimately boil down to shareholders forcing changes to remain competitive. Some will change, others will be beat by the competition.

Personally, I hope the MSM media morphs into a conservative MSM. Imagine ABCCBSNBC all trying to out do each other in being conservative. Competition can do wonderful things. FoxNews might even be tolerable to watch all evening long. (I can't watch O'Reilly, I turn off Hannity and Colmes as soon as Colmes comes on, and as soon as Greta comes on with her ugly botched plastic surgery face I either go to bed or change the channel.)

[Colonel_Flagg]

Sounds like a blast. Sign me up :)

[nutmeg]

FoxFan ping!

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[rwfromkansas]

Uh.....yeah.

They aren't going away.

[rwfromkansas]

The girls flashing outside the windows on CNN weren't bad either.

Since it was live they couldn't blur the images either. That woke us all up!