Fox News Gains, Other News Networks Fall

The Hollywood Repoter via Yahoo! News ^ | September 4, 2003 | Andrew Grossman

[RayChuang88]

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Fox News Channel was the only cable news service in August to grow in viewership from a year ago, gaining 20% in primetime and 29% across the entire day, according to Nielsen Media Research.

By comparison, CNN fell by 9% in primetime and total day, while MSNBC lost 21% in primetime and 11% for the day. Headline News and CNBC also suffered losses greater than 20% compared with August 2002. It marked the 28th consecutive month that Fox led the news channel pack.

For the month, Fox averaged 1.3 million viewers in primetime, compared with 787,000 for CNN and 274,000 for MSNBC. Headline News edged out CNBC -- 250,000 vs. 224,000 viewers. Among adults 25-54, Fox grew by 10% in primetime to average 411,000 viewers, while CNN fell by 14% to 224,000. MSNBC plummeted by 29% to 102,000, followed by Headline News (down 35%) and CNBC (off by 15%).

[Chancellor Palpatine]

I can't deny there are a few of the personalities that I like. A few of the news babes and Doocy are fun, and O'Reilly can occasionally snipe at a guest I'll despise, but when I want actual news which has been corroborated and fleshed out to some extent (and not some tabloid rumor put up as a "Fox News Alert"), I go elsewhere.

[SolutionsOnly]

There are very few shows that present "actual news which has been corroborated and fleshed out to some extent". For that we have to wait several months or years for the documentaries to come out. The broadcast news companies certainly don't do it. In fact, all the media organizations fail miserably at putting things into their proper historical perspective and are 'chicken-littles' for the most part. Lou Dobbs and Brit Hume are better than most. The unfortunately short-lived WSJ Editorial Board with Stuart Varney on CNBC was outstanding. But for most others, it's much ado about nothing - hyping events that nobody will remember three weeks from now - things that are essentially meaningless in the big picture.

[snooker]

" I get a lot of commentary about how I should feel about the news......"

Feeling the news eh?

[snooker]

CNN is not an airshow. Airhead show yes, but I don't see any airplanes.

I have a neighbor who watched CNN during the war. She still hasn't recovered from learning we won.

[saminfl]

Ditto to everything you said in your #40.

[Charlie OK]

The local paper here carries that one, Doonesbury, and one called Bizarro. All of these have bashed Foxnews or rightwingers on many occassions. We do have Mallard Fillmore, but I have noticed the last few days he hasnt even been up to his left-bashing. Seems a little lop-sided to me...

[Mind-numbed Robot]

A few of the news babes and Doocy are fun, and O'Reilly can occasionally snipe at a guest I'll despise, but when I want actual news which has been corroborated and fleshed out to some extent (and not some tabloid rumor put up as a "Fox News Alert"), I go elsewhere.

Well, it is obvious that you watch Fox quite a bit but your description of "actual news" makes one wonder why you trust one source over another, especially the ones you listed who have documented histories of bias and untruth and are rapidly losing audience, as sources of "actual news". How are you able to determine the reliability of the news you consider trustworthy? Clairvoyance? If so, you don't even need a tv to know what is going on, you just know.

I suspect instead that you are the typical liberal who lies to himself about reality and therefore trust nothing and feels equally free to lie to the rest of us. Once it becomes a habit, liars lie out of habit more often than what they for what they consider necessity. Lying for no reason simply further imbeds the neurosis. And there you have it, my description of a liberal.

[Keith in Iowa]

>> Obermann's on his way out. He's just been having too much fun with Al Franken to notice.

A fitting end to Ol'Beerman's sit-down with the Fraknen-turd the other night would have been a Britnety-Madonnaesque open-mouth face sucking.

[Timesink]

MSNBC puts on Keith Olbermann, an unabashed Bush-hater and conservative-hater, as their main prime-time anchor, and their ratings are decimated, with almost 1/3 of their already tiny viewership abandoning them.

Mere coincidence? YOU MAKE THE CALL!

Schadenfreude

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[Timesink]

At least 25 million watch the main stream Nightly news every night; thats about 9 % of all people, close to 20 % of adults.

Just keep in mind those numbers have fallen through the floor over the last 25 years (I think roughly 2/3 of their former audience has abandoned them during that time frame), and continue to drop with each passing year. CBS, in particular, is getting pounded, and lost 5 percent of its audience just between the first half of 2002 and the first half of 2003, despite the war. (All left-wing all the time doesn't sell, apparently.)

[Timesink]

What I want to know is why Fox News Channel is airing a commercial for a CNN morning show? Are they now incorporating fair and balanced advertising?

They're not. Your local cable company is. When they can't sell a spot, they run a "house ad," which is usually just an ad for some show on some channel they air, or an ad for some other service they offer like cable modems. These house ads are generally just thrown randomly into the mix, so you'll often end up seeing something bizarre like a CNN ad on Fox News.

[Timesink]

Note that the enormous success of Fox News Channel is one big reason why News Corporation reported a US$370 million profit lately. I think if FNC had the same level of cable channel clearance as CNN they would have ratings more akin to what you get on over air broadcasts! :-)

News Corp would have made a LOT more money if it weren't for one thing: Back in 1996 when Fox News launched, digital cable pretty much didn't exist, and there was practically no room on any cable systems for new channels. So Rupert Murdoch had to sign contracts with dozens of cable companies in which he paid THEM to carry FNC. (Usually it works exactly in reverse, with cable companies paying the channels for the right to carry them.) These contracts were almost all for ten years; it was the only way Murdoch could get the cablecos to release any channel space.

Most of those contracts still have three years to go. But now that FNC is one of the most popular cable channels PERIOD (not just a popular news channel), once those contracts expire the cablecos will have no choice but to treat FNC like they treat all the other channels, and pay through the nose for the right to continue carrying FNC. Once that happens in fall 2006, look for News Corp profits to EXPLODE. And, flush with all that new money, FNC will expand like crazy ... more reporters, more bureaus, etc ... and CNN will likely be crushed. (Who knows if MSNBC will even still exist by then, at the rate they're going.)

[Timesink]

CNN had a big August relative to July because of the East Coast blackout. It always shoots and scores during a huge crisis, FNC's advantage is in its evening lineup, not its crisis coverage. A temporary blip.

More importantly, FNC can for the most part only get its signal to the satellite from its New York studios, while CNN can "uplink" from Washington and all sorts of other places. So when FNC had a few generator problems the night of the blackout (they ended up having to run tapes of old programs completely unrelated to the blackout for about 10-15 minutes a couple of times), people jumped to CNN and didn't jump back. (This is a problem FNC can and will fix, since theoretically anyone with a satellite truck can put a signal out and "become" the network, but FNC had some badly-designed setup with their Master Control room that prevented this for some reason. Michael, maybe you know more about this? I never really learned the engineering side of things as much as I should have.)

Also, it's August. That's traditionally the month in which nothing happens, and all the big names go on vacation. (Notice, for example, that Bill O'Reilly and Shepard Smith were gone for huge chunks of August.) Thus, fewer viewers. CNN, having no big names (heh heh), did not have the problem of viewers tuning in to watch anchor X, getting subanchor Z instead and changing the channel.

[Mo1]

For the month, Fox averaged 1.3 million viewers in primetime, compared with 787,000 for CNN and 274,000 for MSNBC

According to Hellery .. I guess this means that majority of the viewers are part of the VRWC huh?

[KellyAdmirer]

Interesting post, thanks, I learned something there. You sound like someone who knows the business pretty well.

[Timesink]

Interesting post, thanks, I learned something there. You sound like someone who knows the business pretty well.

Thanks ... I used to be deep on the inside, but nobody will hire me any more.

[expatpat]

Remeber, that 1:100 is the fraction of people who are watching at any given time. Many people have other things to do besides continuing to watch news channels regurgitate the same news items all evening. Boys play electronic games, girls wash their hair, etc. Some people even go out on dates, or eat out!

[nutmeg]

FYI, re your comments on the network evening newscasts..the NEXT step, supposedly, for Fox is to compete directly with them by offering the first half hour of Brit's show on the FOX network...

The FOX network will be running Brit's show (first half) on its network? Is that true or speculation? Great news if true...

I know many "right-of-center" (sometimes Kool-Aid drinkers, for lack of a better term) people here without cable/satellite who would absolutely love his show, and become regular viewers. Seeing/hearing Brit's broadcast would a breath of fresh air for them... I still remember how stunned I was, watching his newscast for the first time - couldn't believe how different it was from the nightly news reports I'd seen on CBSABCNBCPBSCNNMSNBCCNBC...

[nutmeg]

Add me to the "I can't stand Olbermann" list. Has his show been cancelled?