Really?
Top 10 cable news ratings Q3, 2012:
1. The O'Reilly Factor
Fox News -- 2.831 million total viewers
2. Hannity
Fox News -- 2.35 million total viewers
3. Special Report with Bret Baier
Fox News -- 1.96 million total viewers
4. The Five
Fox News -- 1.86 million total viewers
5. On the Record with Greta van Susteren
Fox News -- 1.828 million total viewers
6. Fox Report with Shepard Smith
Fox News -- 1.734 million total viewers
7. America's Newsroom
Fox News -- 1.405 million total viewers
8. Your World with Neil Cavuto
Fox News -- 1.377 million total viewers
9. America Live
Fox News -- 1.234 million total viewers
10. O'Reilly Factor (11PM)
Fox News -- 1.191 million total viewers
******* liar.
Puhhhleeze, posting Q3 numbers in response to Q4 information then-----then calling my C&P a lie? What's your excuse for missing the gist this time?
Maddow and O’Donnell Jingle Fox’s Bells:
For the month of December, two-thirds of the Fox News primetime lineup came in second to MSNBC (in the critical 25-54 year old demographic). The Rachel Maddow Show’s monthly average came in 4% above the formidable Fox fixture, Sean Hannity. Lawrence O’Donnell had an even better advantage of 11% over his weaker competition, Greta Van Susteren.
This was a stark difference from last year when Hannity comfortably led Maddow by 46% and Van Susteren outpaced O’Donnell by the same amount. Those leads have now completely evaporated. Only Bill O’Reilly has managed to keep his fat head above water, although his 69% December 2011 lead over Ed Schultz was cut nearly in half in 2012 to 40%.
December 2012 was an affirmation of the superior performance MSNBC has shown since the election in November. Maddow and O’Donnell have
consistently defeated Hannity and Van Susteren since President Obama did the same thing to Mitt Romney. This can no longer be explained away by Fox defenders as mere depression on the part of conservative viewers who tuned out after an electoral spanking. That excuse may have made sense for a week or two, but not a full two months later with high profile news events like the
“fiscal cliff,” new cabinet appointments, Benghazi hearings, the Petraeus scandal, and the Newtown school shooting dominating news coverage.
Like I said America is starting to notice that Fox skews the news.
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Bullshit. You did not post Q4 numbers, only the CHANGE in ONE demographic between Dec '11 and Dec '12, you dis-ingenious piece of shit.
I have not seen Q4 numbers FOR ALL DEMOGRAPHICS yet posted, but I assure you, Fox will still dominate.
Your bias is overwhelming.
I drool when I see people post ratings as if they're "votes".
Ratings exist for one purpose and one purpose only: so that the broadcaster has a basis to set advertising rates. That's it. And that means the more eyeballs you draw, the more you can charge. That has zero to do with "credibility". It has to do with
attention.
Fox Noise is adept at creating attention; that's why the ratings are what they are. The bright romper room colors on everything; the short-skirted bimbos; the suggestive chyrons constantly crawling across the screen with loaded questions ("Did Obama and Chris Christie create Sandy?"); the endless format of confrontation and us/them morality plays; the constant highlighting of anything that can be angled into a fear topic and the graphics that go whooooosh ... this is all engineered to bring you in and keep you there. Because the more you're there, the more they can charge the advertiser.
That's what ratings mean.
Attention isn't garnered by credibility or ethical journalism or thoughtful content. A balanced, thinking, philosophical in-depth look at the issues would fall flat in terms of ratings books. But bring in "they're coming to take your guns" or "new bill means your taxes go up", or "did Obama go to terrorism school?" and voilà -- viewers. Doesn't mean they
agree with it; it means they agree that it's a spectacle. Just as a line of cars slowing down to rubberneck at the overturned tractor-trailer doesn't mean they "agree" with the idea of having accidents.
Humans gawk at drama. If there's any doubt about that, consider that the big draws on TV among
non-news shows are moronic sitcoms, fake wrestling and people stranded on an island forced to eat bugs.
Fox News isn't news; it's news-theater. It's a TV gossip show using politicians instead of movie stars. It's always about the personal, and never about the issues. Tabloid journalism is, after all, what Rupert Murdoch built his fortune on.
By now FNC is far from the only one employing this kind of manipulation. Where'd it come from?
Real news is expensive to produce. All those alphabet newscasts we grew up with in the '50s and '60s were heavily subsidized by Gilligan's Island and the Beverly Hillbillies -- the real money makers. You don't make a profit by doing news. So in came Fox sixteen years ago with a new angle: rather than do actual news, they would sit people in a studio and have them talk
about the news. Certainly there are onsite reporters (or stringers) when the occasion requires, but their bread and butter -- where they make their money-- is the evening "prime time" with all those talking heads who will be the first to protest that they're
commentators, not journalists... while the logo on the corner continues to read "Fox
News". More manipulation. And on they go, yammering constantly about
people, not ideas. About
politicians, not politics. And a free boogeyman with every one. Nothing sells like fear. The same reason your local news channel will lead not with what city council did today or people having a good time at the local festival, but a deadly fire in some neighborhood you never heard of. Fire! Death! Missing white girl! Salivate now!
Sadly, competitive commercial broadcasting being what it is, the CNNs and MSNBCs have gradually given up their own ethics to follow suit. Because that's where the money is.
Let's just be clear about what the ratings mean, and what they don't.
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