Cable News Viewers Are Getting Smarter – Dumping Fox News

[poncho]

In the first quarter of 2013 the trends for cable news viewership are affirming past performance. And once again, Fox News is losing viewers at a faster rate than its competitors.

While remaining on top overall, Fox lost nearly 20% of its total audience as compared to the same period last year. Even worse, in the critical advertising demographic of 18-54 year olds, Fox scared off a full third of their viewers. Only MSNBC managed to stay relatively flat, holding onto most of their audience.

On specific programs, Fox’s top rated show, The O’Reilly Factor, dropped by 26%. His primetime colleagues, Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren, similarly flopped by 28% and 35% respectively. That contrasts sharply with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show that increased 5%, the only program in its time period to rise.

CONTINUE . . .

Wowsers! Billy O must really be doing something wrong to lose out to Rachel Maddow. He opened his mouth again I'll bet. :tonofbricks:

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

Yeah, 140 months of being #1 in cable news is a horrible nosedive, huh? A few facts regarding August 2013 for Fox News ...

• More viewers than CNN, MSNBC and HLN combined
• Had the top 13 viewed shows total among cable news networks
• Had the top 11 shows in the coveted 25-49 demographic

[tongue in cheek]

Yeah, Fox is really hurting, I guess. So much so, their profits for this year rose 25% over last year.

I surely feel sorry for them.

[/tongue in cheek]

 

[Revmitchell]

"The Rachel Maddow Show" posted all-time ratings lows in August, in a month that continued a ratings plunge that has prevailed throughout much of the year.

The show was down 43% in total viewers and 47% in the key 25-54 age demographic, respectively, from August 2012.

And overall, MSNBC posted ratings that were down 28% in total viewers and 32% in the demographic in the daytime, and down 36% and 32%, respectively, in primetime. For the 140th consecutive month in cable news, Fox News won the ratings war, and CNN slipped down to third place in both primetime and total-day viewers.

For MSNBC, the good news is that it beat out CNN in primetime ratings, coming in second place in primetime for the first time since April. CNN was up from anemic August 2012 numbers in both total viewers and in the demographic, posting 6% and 9% respective gains in primetime.

CNN's "New Day," which endured a rather brutal stretch last week, was only morning program across all three networks to increase its audience from a year ago. But it also slipped down to fourth in the demo, behind sister network HLN.

Fox News, meanwhile, was far out in front of the other networks, as it drew more total viewers than the other three networks combined in both total-day and primetime measures.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/msnbc-cnn-fox-news-ratings-august-2013-8#ixzz2g85IgVUd

 

[poncho]

Younger viewers continue to tune out Fox News as the network’s ratings for the month of August hit their lowest level since 2001.

Fox News remains the overall ratings leader by a wide margin, but young viewers are tuning out the conservative network in record numbers.

Compared to August 2012, Fox News was down -10% in total viewers and -24% in the A25-54 demographic in total day. In primetime, the network was down -15% and -24%, respectively. The network was down in both total viewers and the A25-54 demographic in every hour of programming from 9am-11pmET, except for “The Five,” which was flat in total viewers and down -25% in the demo.
…
“The O’Reilly Factor,” “Hannity” and “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren” were down for the month compared to August 2012: Bill O’Reilly’s program was down -9% in total viewers and -25% in the demo, while Sean Hannity’s show was down -21% in total viewers and -26% in the demo. “On the Record” was down -20% in both ratings measurements.

< snip >

Fox News is trapped between pleasing the old audience that keeps them number one, and fighting a demographic battle that they are destined to lose.

Beneath the high ratings there are some serious problems brewing at Fox News. Roger Ailes may win the battles against CNN and MSNBC, but he can’t beat Father Time.

CONTINUE . . .

Looks like Fox news and the republican party has the same problem. Young people are getting tired of grouchy old men in 2,000 dollar suits that only want to bring us more government, more wars, more debt and less freedom.


Continuing a downward spiral that began last September during the Democratic National Convention, Fox News primetime ratings, in the key 25-54 year old demographic, have declined to numbers they haven’t seen since August of 2001. These are numbers that revert Fox back to the George Bush, pre-9/11 era when Fox was struggling for attention.

CONTINUE . . .


Just how old is its audience? It is impossible to be precise because Nielsen stops giving an exact figure for median age once it passes 65. But for six of the last eight years, Fox News has had a median age of 65-plus and the number of viewers in the 25-54 year old group has been falling consistently, down five years in a row in prime time, from an average of 557,000 viewers five years ago to 379,000 this year. That has occurred even though Fox’s overall audience in prime time is up this year, to 2.02 million from 1.89 million three years ago.

The network also has been faced with a recent string of nightly wins in that 25-54 audience by CNN, which had been hopelessly behind in recent years.

“The numbers indicate they haven’t been replacing the younger viewers,” Mr. Moffett said of Fox News. Many of the loyal viewers the network has always had are simply aging up beyond the 54-year cutoff for many ad buyers. The result is an audience edging consistently above that 65-plus number.

CONTINUE . . .

The Ratings Collapse of The Establishment Media Represents A Huge Cultural Change In The West

There is a massive media shift taking place in America and other Western countries as more and more young people reject mainstream media institutions. They are turning to blogs, Internet news anchors, social media websites like Twitter and Facebook, and internet-based commentators to get their news and alternative perspectives of reality.

Big media companies have no chance competing against the rising independent media in a free-market atmosphere. They are history unless they can successfully lobby the federal government to censor anti-government websites in the name of cyber security. (Note to TND, lobbying the government to censor the competition is not "free enterprise" it's corporatism.)

< snip >

This huge shift in news consumption will have cultural, social and political ramifications for many years to come, possibly altering the very nature of our societies and our governments. What we are witnessing is no small revolution - it is the liberation of the Western media and, by extension, the Western public mind, from government and corporate narratives about history and reality.

CONTINUE . . .

And you said I was paranoid of technology TND. :laugh:

I love it when it's putting the old dinosaur corporate media out to pasture where it belongs.

 

[evenifigoalone]

I don't generally watch any of the mainstream news. If I do, I take it with a grain of salt.

 

[poncho]

Yeah, 140 months of being #1 in cable news is a horrible nosedive, huh? A few facts regarding August 2013 for Fox News ...

• More viewers than CNN, MSNBC and HLN combined
• Had the top 13 viewed shows total among cable news networks
• Had the top 11 shows in the coveted 25-49 demographic

[tongue in cheek]

Yeah, Fox is really hurting, I guess. So much so, their profits for this year rose 25% over last year.

I surely feel sorry for them.

[/tongue in cheek]

How can it stay at this "huge level of success" (with numbers lower now than in 2001) with all the young people abandoning it? Kudos to you old timers for keeping it going this long.

But how much longer can you old folks do it without bringing in new blood?

 

[SolaSaint]

Trollin fur conservatives?

 

[church mouse guy]

I like Lou Dobbs better than anyone else on Fox. Fox has never been able to attract the top advertisers so their revenues may be lower than the others, which are still going to get rich Democrat advertisers.

The best place to get a cross-section of the news daily for me is the Baptist Board.

 

[poncho]

I like Lou Dobbs better than anyone else on Fox. Fox has never been able to attract the top advertisers so their revenues may be lower than the others, which are still going to get rich Democrat advertisers.

The best place to get a cross-section of the news daily for me is the Baptist Board.

Here's some more news . . . Dianne Feinstein and TND will both like this. :smilewinkgrin:

New wave of online censorship as establishment panics about losing ability to dictate reality.

Desperate to cling onto their ability to dictate reality, the crumbling mainstream media is beginning to kill off article comment sections in a cynical bid to silence dissenting voices.

< snip >

Recent polls show that trust in mainstream media is hovering at record lows. After largely failing to influence the court of public opinion via paid trolls, the establishment is starting to panic and is responding by moving to cull comment sections altogether.

Popular Science and BoingBoing.net recently announced their decision to kill comment sections on their website. The New York Times also recently indicated that it is scaling back comments and removing them from some articles altogether.

As an excellent Daily Tech piece highlights, Popular Science admitted that its decision to pull the comment section was in order to preach a “scientific doctrine” on global warming without being challenged.

CONTINUE . . .

From Popular Science . . .

Another, similarly designed study found that just firmly worded (but not uncivil) disagreements between commenters impacted readers' perception of science.

If you carry out those results to their logical end--commenters shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded--you start to see why we feel compelled to hit the "off" switch.

CONTINUE . . .

Yeah we can't have the public's opinion swaying public opinion that's a job better left to the corporate funded experts, talking heads and international elitists.

So shut up and go away public!
​

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

I like Lou Dobbs better than anyone else on Fox. Fox has never been able to attract the top advertisers so their revenues may be lower than the others, which are still going to get rich Democrat advertisers.

Have you been paying attention to the rest of this thread (minus Poncho's drivel, or course) or not? Fox is by far the most financially successful cable news channel in existence, bar none. They don't have any trouble attracting advertisers, and the conservative businesses in this country are going to spend their money with FNC first, before buying time with the losers that take their money and then bash business in general.

 

[poncho]

Yeah 2.2 million viewers out of a population of 350 million? Yeah that's great.

Compare that to Alex Jones Infowars that gets 15 million visits a day. And Fox keeps sending more young people (under 54) over! :thumbsup:

Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the 'pathetic' American media.

Pulitzer Prize winner explains how to fix journalism, saying press should 'fire 90% of editors and promote ones you can't control'

Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider.

It doesn't take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist".

He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.


http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2013/sep/27/seymour-hersh-obama-nsa-american-media


That's a novel idea. A journalist that isn't a paid shill for one side or the other.

Fox certainly can't claim to have any journalists like that. But then neither can any of the other four conglomerated corporate networks.

No wonder the corporate media is becoming a thing of the past

 

[InTheLight]

While visiting my Mom I see a lot of the news channels. I notice what products are advertised. Fox News has a lot of ads from smaller companies aimed at elderly people. Walk in bathtubs, medicines, long term care insurance, etc.

CNN and MSNBC have a broad spectrum of products advertised from Fortune 500 companies that appeal to the under 50 crowd.

So simply by judging the advertising content it is obvious that Fox does not have the coveted 18 - 35 age group. Fox does have trouble attracting advertisers, at least in the demographic that consume the most products. It would be interesting to compare the ad rates per viewer numbers for these networks. My guess would be that Fox has the lowest rates per viewer.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

Compare that to Alex Jones Infowars that gets 15 million visits a day.

A good two million of those hits are from you, right?

 

[Crabtownboy]

Younger viewers continue to tune out Fox News as the network’s ratings for the month of August hit their lowest level since 2001.

Fox News is trapped between pleasing the old audience that keeps them number one, and fighting a demographic battle that they are destined to lose.

Beneath the high ratings there are some serious problems brewing at Fox News. Roger Ailes may win the battles against CNN and MSNBC, but he can’t beat Father Time.

CONTINUE . . .

Looks like Fox news and the republican party has the same problem. Young people are getting tired of grouchy old men in 2,000 dollar suits that only want to bring us more government, more wars, more debt and less freedom.

There it is in a nutshell. The GOP and Fox are on a dead end course and seem unable to figure out what to do. But Father Time respects no political party or news network.

 

[poncho]

A good two million of those hits are from you, right?

Nope just once a day is all it takes to be better informed than Fox viewers.

Alex's staff isn't full of corporate shills that get paid to spin the news so it's favorable to the neocon "over the hill gang" aka t hetiny percentage of the population it depends on to keep it alive. :smilewinkgrin:

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

So simply by judging the advertising content it is obvious that Fox does not have the coveted 18 - 35 age group.

You can make whatever wild suppositions you choose, but the facts don't support your conclusions.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/randy-...nnel-ends-2012-top-ratings-11th-straight-year​

While the arrival of 2013 rang in a happy new year, it also brought in happy ratings for the Fox News Channel, which continued to dominate the cable news channel race in total viewers and the Adult 24-54 demographic for the 11th consecutive year.

That's for 2012. For Thursday, the latest day for which data is available:

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/category/ratings​

25-54 demographic (Live +SD)

Total day: FNC: 249 | MSNBC: 137 | CNN: 99 | HLN: 76

Primetime: FNC: 312 | MSNBC: 179 | CNN: 107 | HLN: 70

Face it. People watch FNC more than any other cable news channel, and it is the third most-watched cable channel of any kind.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/randy-...-top-ratings-11th-straight-year#ixzz2gDMHoPeW​

Among all basic cable networks, Fox News Channel ranked third in prime time viewers, trailing only USA Network and ESPN while easily bypassing both MSNBC and CNN, which came in 19th and 29th, respectively.

Cable news viewers overall are not largely college educated.

http://www.people-press.org/2012/09/27/section-4-demographics-and-political-views-of-news-audiences/​

More than half of the regular readers of the Wall Street Journal (56%), New York Times (56%) and news magazines (53%) also are college graduates. NPR’s audience also is relatively well educated (54% are college graduates). Just 29% of all Americans are college graduates.

By comparison, 29% of CNN’s regular audience, 26% of MSNBC’s audience and 24% of Fox News’s regular audience completed college.

So you and the liberals can take all the potshots you want at FNC. But you're going to have to live with the facts, and these are them.

 

[poncho]

You can make whatever wild suppositions you choose, but the facts don't support your conclusions.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/randy-...nnel-ends-2012-top-ratings-11th-straight-year​

That's for 2012. For Thursday, the latest day for which data is available:

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/category/ratings​

Face it. People watch FNC more than any other cable news channel, and it is the third most-watched cable channel of any kind.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/randy-...-top-ratings-11th-straight-year#ixzz2gDMHoPeW​

Cable news viewers overall are not largely college educated.

http://www.people-press.org/2012/09/27/section-4-demographics-and-political-views-of-news-audiences/​

So you and the liberals can take all the potshots you want at FNC. But you're going to have to live with the facts, and these are them.

Hey wait a minute TND you said in another thread you were opposed to using bloggers as a source because they weren't "real journalists" I believe those were your exact words. And here you are sourcing bloggers trying to make your point!

That's too funny! :laugh:

What's the problem couldn't find any "Fox Facts" to make your point? :laugh:

That reminds me of them democrats that want to force Obamacare on the rest of us while they make themselves exempt. Too funny! LOL! I like you TND you crack me up. :thumbs:

 

[Revmitchell]

While visiting my Mom I see a lot of the news channels. I notice what products are advertised. Fox News has a lot of ads from smaller companies aimed at elderly people. Walk in bathtubs, medicines, long term care insurance, etc.

CNN and MSNBC have a broad spectrum of products advertised from Fortune 500 companies that appeal to the under 50 crowd.

So simply by judging the advertising content it is obvious that Fox does not have the coveted 18 - 35 age group. Fox does have trouble attracting advertisers, at least in the demographic that consume the most products. It would be interesting to compare the ad rates per viewer numbers for these networks. My guess would be that Fox has the lowest rates per viewer.

You need to watch it some time other than the middle of the day.

 

[Revmitchell]

A lot of wishful left wing thinking in this thread.

 

[InTheLight]

You need to watch it some time other than the middle of the day.

Supposing I do? Suppose Fox attracts bigger, more well known brands at night--that doesn't mean the other networks advertisers go down in quality. I can see that Fox is losing the battle during the day. At night they may be pulling even in advertiser quality.

The real numbers of interest is $/eyeball charged and demographic sought after.

And TND, Fox may be winning the 25-54 demographic, but that is not the top demographic, it's 18-35.