I remember back when no one would have thought a news show should not, and was not, judged by how many people watched it, but how accurate and reliable it was. Fox does not care about accuracy, obviously, it cares about propaganda and making sure all the old bigoted white folks out there hear nothing but the stuff the republican party wants them to hear, and what the geezer white folks want to hear. Has nothing to do with the news, it has to do with kissing Trump's ass, having a lot of pretty girls with long pretty legs in short dresses being shown lounging around a desk spewing right wing pablum for the old dudes at home. Most advertisers judge a show by their rankings in the 25-54 year old market. CNN does okay in that category. Fox suffers in that prime demographic because younger people want facts more than bullshit, and are not by nature as bigoted as people over 60 years old who would ever watch Fox, even for a few minutes. Fox also has the distinct advantage of being the only game in town for elderly bigots to watch on Cable or Broadcast TV. In most markets, there are real news media, like ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, PBS, and Bloomberg, mostly business news, and there is right wing spin and infotainment media- FOX AND ONLY FOX. Even a trump voter must know the less competition you have in a market, the larger your market share will be. Fox gets every dumbass bigoted, mostly elderly viewer bored enough to watch their shit each day, while the real news media stations have to fight amongst themselves for those who want the news presented fairly and accurately, and their opinion shows leaning left, but still accurate and reliable, not full of hate and bullshit like fox's clowns.
Fox News Channel once again came out on top of the cable news ratings for the first quarter, but not without stiff competition from MSNBC and
Rachel Maddow in particular.
In the primetime 8-11 p.m. slot,
Fox News averaged 2.4 million total viewers (down 1% from the year-ago quarter), with including 421,000 in the key 25-54 demo, while MSNBC averaged 1.9 million total viewers (up 3% from 2018) and 333,000 in the 25-54 bracket.
MSNBC struck back in the 25-54 demo for individual shows, with Maddow beating out
Sean Hannity’s FNC program in Q1. Maddow drew 549,000 viewers in the key news demo on average, compared to Hannity’s 547,000 and Tucker Carlson’s 532,000.
However, ultimately the shows split bragging rights. Hannity bested Maddow in terms of average total viewership, drawing 3.12 million compared to 3.06. Maddow was followed by three other FNC shows: “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (2.98 million), “The Five” (2.58 million) and “The Ingraham Angle” (2.43 million).
Interestingly, in the month of March, Maddow was down in third place in the 25-54 demo at 509,000, behind Hannity at 533,000 and Carlson, who topped the demo for first time, with 537,000. Maddow also lagged the two Fox News hosts in total viewership, averaging 2.89 million average viewers to Hannity’s 3.15 million and Carlson’s 3.03 million.
Meanwhile, CNN grew in total viewership in the primetime 8-11 p.m. slot for Q1 with just over 1 million average total viewers, a 7% bump from the same quarter in 2018.
Fox News Tops Q1 Cable News Ratings, Maddow Bests Hannity in Key Demo