All Cable New channels ratings crash except Fox!

Yahoo news.com ^ | 1/1/03 | Craig Offman

[Pliney the younger]

CNN, Headline News, MSNBC and CNBC suffered double-digit drops in year-end ratings .Only Fox News, which has become THE PRIMETIME CABLE NEWS DESTINATION experienced significant growth in total-day and primetime versus 2001.

[Dave S]

They are counting the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which were as few this year as they ever get.

Regardless of the number of shopping days, relatively few consumers start their shopping until after Thanksgiving. Many put it off as long as possible because they have been trained that deals are going to happen if you only wait long enough. People are not going to do their Xmas shopping in January, except perhaps for themselves. Thus regardless of the number of days available, the shopping has to occur withint that period or be lost. The number of days is ONLY relevent in that it defines how much pressure the stores are under to meet their goals. Its not like fast food where the number of meals is proportional to the number of days. The number of people shopped for and the amount spent should be the same regardless of how few days you have to do the shopping in. I didnt start until the weekend before Xmas.

[LS]

Actually, many of the stores had GOOD seasons, just not quite as good as last year. K-Mart, for ex., reported that its sales were up, just not as much as expected.

[B Knotts]

Those are no longer exclusive to DirecTV. Dish is in negotiations with NFL and MLB; they already have NHL and NBA packages.

[Centurion2000]

bump .... the internet had a boom season this Christmas as well.

[anniegetyourgun]

Does anyone know if FOXNews is getting into San Fransisco yet?

[B Knotts]

I have to tell you, though, even with 150 channels it's pretty hard to find anything decent to watch.

Ain't that the truth!

What has happened is that there are more channels than there is programming. I think the channels are trying to minimize their programming costs by running the same three or four shows over and over.

There used to be some decent programming on A&E, Discovery, TLC and History Channel. There's still a little bit from time to time, but most of it is crap now.

[Hank Rearden]

Fox news is great - but their morning show is just unbearable to me. I can't even watch five minutes of it.

The only thing worse on their schedule is that Shepard Smith crapfest - I hit the History Channel for that hour. He's the worst; smarmy and unwatchable.

[Gracey]

I listen to NPR on the radio .... an hour of bashing Fox News as biased, racists, sexists, and dangerous for America. There were no oposing views offered. The liberals are very scared indeed!

Egads. And all at our - taxpayers - expense. They'd be off the air and bankrupt by now if the government wasn't sponsoring this lefty/commie program.

[Dave S]

Actually, many of the stores had GOOD seasons, just not quite as good as last year. K-Mart, for ex., reported that its sales were up, just not as much as expected.

Since when is being up 1.5% a good season. Many of the retailers were showing 10-15% declines. But for the sake of argument, how do you call a 1.5% increase good when you have increases in the size of the economy (more people buying) and some inflation (higher prices of same goods sold). Real increase in items sold per buyer year to year is flat or worse. If your sales are going up, the value of your market price on the stock market is going to plumet.

[Reactionary]

Ah, the beauty, the wonder and the glory.

Pig Liberal Media is nearly dead.

[FLCowboy,]

All freepers living in areas where their cable providers refuse to provide Fox News should contact Dish for free installation of the satellite receiver and two control boxes. Then you can get Fox News like the rest of us.

Just be sure to get the 100 channel package because the 50 channel package does not include Fox News. You can get single channels a la carte now that I think about it.

I have DirecTV and can get FOX in the basic package which is only $31.95 monthly. Plus, DirecTV is the only one who has the NFL package each fall, thus allowing me to watch any game I choose.

[George W. Bush]

Plus, DirecTV is the only one who has the NFL package each fall, thus allowing me to watch any game I choose.

Their NFL package isn't as good as it once was. There are a lot of restrictions now that they didn't have when they started. Quality of programming and availability is declining. I think there is a general consensus among DTVers on this. It's no longer quite the selling point it was a few years ago. And I think Dish will find a way to horn in on it.

[snippy_about_it]

Subscription site for Washington Times weekly edition

[gcruse]

. That makes surfing a little easier, but it highlights that we aren't really getting 150 good channels.

I have DirecTV's basic plan.  The key for me was TIVO. With TIVO, there is more programming recorded that I can watch in a day.  And it is ninety percent stuff that I would watch.
Can't imagine managing 150 channels without TIVO.   There is always something good on the hard drive, whether it is live or not.

[Libertina]

All three of the pig three network news commentators
LOL Slip? Happy about FOXNEWS. Brit Hume BUMP!

[Wild Irish Rogue]

" Brian Williams is not anti-Bush. You are flat out wrong on that.....

As far as the worst Christmas Season in 30 years, it was. That is economic fact."

Williams may be a Bush fan-in private,but, definitely not during his newscasts the past week or so. When Williams wasn't telling the viewers how dismal the shopping season was( which he did every single night) and linking it to Bush,he featured pieces on how Republicans have always talked in code to Southerners and how Bush is going to nominate "controversial" judges to the bench. Any negative story was always tied to Bush.There was not one upbeat or positive story in any way related to Bush. I am not an economist, so I can't address how the holiday shopping season will stack up to others. I read last week that on line sales were up 41% and that gift certificates may help the bottom line of some merchants. From Yahoo today-
" NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. holiday sales have been disappointing, but analysts believe retailers will get a boost immediately after Christmas, thanks to growing demand for gift certificates. " The article goes on to say that the purchase of a gift certificate is not factored in,until the certificate is actually redeemed. " Industry observers say sales of gift certificates.. are up dramatically this year." Maybe when everything is factored in, this past season may not have been as horrendous as Brian Williams kept saying it was, every night.









.

[Grampa Dave]

So the Compost which is printed on recycled/used left wing toilet tissue raised their price from a quarter to 35 cents?

Those evil left wing fascists just raised their prices 40%.

The first to be hit with this terrible price increase will be the minorities, illegal aliens and women with 10 children on welfare. Now they can't afford to read the Compost.

This 40% increase makes Lott's comments look like nothing. This price increase is truly racist, exclusive and sexist.

[Grampa Dave]

My wife and DIL go Christmas shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, and they buy a lot of Christmas presents. Then my wife and I make one trip to Toys Are Us to buy items that our grandkids have wanted and weren't bought on that post Thanksgiving trip.

After that most of our presents are bought on the internet. Probably 70% of our total presents we gave to others, were bought on the internet.

Our three and half year old grand daughter has cracked the code all ready. She and her grandmother will go over a catalog for hours. Then, she comes to me sits on my lap and hands me a pen to mark on the catalog, what she wants from my puter. That takes a couple of minutes.

One of her east coast relatives sent money, and she wanted some specific items for her dolls. She and her Mom couldn't find them in their local stores. That night after a lot of shopping, she woke up at about midnight and told her Mom not to worry because Papa would find them on his puter and get them for her. She was right.

[Quilla]

The day after Thanksgiving sale figures were immediately reported and if I recall correctly, they were fantastic. I considered it a bit suspicious that a week went by without concrete numbers on overall Christmas sales. As it is a given that the media leans far to the left, I suspect these figures have been out there but the delay came in interpretation (aka spin) time. The goal is to continue to paint a dismal picture of President Bush's administration's policies.

That being said, I have never seen more traffic, longer lines, and crowds at malls than I witnessed this year. I'm not buying the publicized gloom and doom figures.