Fox News Suffers Worst Ratings In Thirteen Years – And That’s Not Their Big Problem

[babylonsister]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/30/1303163/-Fox-News-Suffers-Worst-Ratings-In-Thirteen-Years-And-That-s-Not-Their-Big-Problem?detail=facebook#

Fri May 30, 2014 at 12:28 PM PDT
Fox News Suffers Worst Ratings In Thirteen Years – And That’s Not Their Big Problem

by News Corpse


Fox News has fallen and it can't get up. Ratings for the month of May 2014, have just been published, and the numbers are devastating for Fox News. While still occupying the top slot among the cable news networks, Fox saw about a quarter of its audience dissolve across every demographic group and time period.

Every Fox program in primetime dropped by double-digits, with Bill O'Reilly taking the deepest dive. Sean Hannity posted some of his lowest numbers ever in his new 10:00 pm time slot. And Megyn Kelly's new, and highly anticipated, primetime show failed to improve on the ratings performance of her predecessor.

To be sure, Fox was not the only network to see declines. In fact, CNN had an even larger dip. The news was much better for MSNBC who was down the least of all the cable news networks. They lost a relatively insignificant five percent of total viewers, but actually saw increases for Morning Joe, and for Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow in primetime.

For Fox to post numbers that they haven't seen since August of 2001 (before 9/11) is a painful blow to both their reputation and their bank account. But they have even bigger problems. The viewers that do tune in to Fox are significantly older than viewers of their competitors. Fox News has always had the oldest skewing audience in cable news. With a median age of 68.8 years, Fox's audience is over six years older than either CNN or MSNBC. It's even worse for their top rated program (O'Reilly) who's average viewer is over 72 years old. And their Great Blonde Hope (Kelly), who was specifically brought in to draw younger viewers, also exceeded Fox's average with her typical viewer voyeur being over 70.

snip//

Apparently Fox is not satisfied with alienating African-Americans and Latinos and women and youth and the middle-class and workers and, of course, most of America's liberals and moderates. Now they are aiming to narrow their appeal even more by driving away the last remnants of their audience - senior citizens. Keep up the good work, Fox.

[maggiesfarmer]

1. meh. all the MSM news networks are down. slow news month.

Jay Carney's resignation today is the most interesting thing that's happened in May.

no real news on Nigeria.
CNN especially, but all the networks have beat the Malaysian plane to death.
even Fox viewers are sick of hearing about Benghazi.
the VA scandal wasn't a surprise to anyone and after the story broke, there was nothing to report until today with Shinseki's resignation.
Hillary is running. Liz insists she isn't.

I've watched less news this month too.

btw, Kelly's show has been on the air for 9 months -- I wouldn't call it "new, and highly anticipated".

[Tarheel_Dem]

2. They lost the Cliven Bundy contingency. n/t

[Jefferson23]

3. Great news, which was hard to find today: Fox News has fallen and it can't get up.

May it stay that way too.

[RoverSuswade]

15. Foxifried

Shawn De-hannitized.
O No Reilly.
Bret Buried.
Charles Droughthammer.
Steve Donecey.
Rudepert Murmocked.

[dem in texas]

4. Nothing but old white men sitting in their recliners

Love it, Bill O'Reilly's audience is over 72 and M. Kelly audience is over 70. Are they getting a cheap thrill trying to see her boobs? Pitiful!

[totodeinhere]

14. However Fox News also continues to win the 25-54 demo as well.

Yes they have the oldest audience overall, but in the younger 25-54 demo they usually beat both CNN and MSNBC. For instance, in May Fox News had the top eight shows in the 25-54 demo in all of cable news.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/may-2014-ratings-fox-news-1-for-149-straight-months_b226483

Also, MSNBC didn't do so well in May either.

In total day, MNSBC delivered its lowest ratings in total viewers since December 2007 and in the A25-54 demo since June 2006. In primetime, the network had its lowest demo delivery since July 2006.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/may-2014-ratings-msnbc-reclaims-2_b226485

[rurallib]

16. hard for MSNBC to battle FUX when they are on about 1/3 of the cable packages

and where they do exist they are a premium channel. FUX is the cable news they all give away with any package.

[totodeinhere]

18. Not true. MSNBC is in about 3% fewer homes than FNC. Yet FNC routinely

beats MSNBC by much more than 3%.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/08/23/list-of-how-many-homes-each-cable-networks-is-in-cable-network-coverage-estimates-as-of-august-2013/199072/

As you can see at the link I provided FNC has 85% coverage while MSNBC has 82% coverage.

Look, I am not fan of Fox News. I'm just trying to keep the facts straight.

[maced666]

21. Premium? Where the hell did you get that.

Of the past 5 providers I used it came with basic package.
Fox, on two of them, were the ones you had to upgrade for.

[fizzgig]

29. msnbc is premium on dish and comcast

fox comes with the basic package.

[Politicub]

35. Yep - it's considered premium here, too

Wish I could have MSNBC instead of Faux.

[freebrew]

36. Same with Directv...

I was paying the top rate(minus sports packages) in order to get MSNBC.

Then, they got rid of Olberman and others. So, I got an antenna and quit paying the assholes.

$72 a month better off now and I get my news from here, mostly.

[Dustlawyer]

40. When I travel I find FOX at every hotel, but MSNBC only 1/2 - 2/3 of the hotels.

[erronis]

41. That's because their RW $pockets don't care about ratings - just eyeballs

[tooeyeten]

38. Noticed too

When local cable company moved Fox up the dial while moving MSNBC down the dial, in a red state.

[Jamaal510]

24. There are plenty of

leg shots of her on YouTube, too, whenever you put her name into the search engine.

[lpbk2713]

5. It's Ben Gazzey's fault.

... as usual.

[tom_kelly]

6. I bet

24/7 coverage of a search for a missing plane didn't help.

[calimary]

30. Welcome to DU, tom_kelly!

Glad you're here! That probably has a lot to do with CNN's fate, especially. Sure, they really distinguish themselves with overseas/international reporting, during major international stories where they have the depth and breadth that the competition just can't afford to build or cultivate. But with that Malaysian jet fiasco, I think they just took it way too far. It reminded many of us er - uh - slightly older types (who remember "Saturday Night Live" from its Aykroyd/Belushi/Radner/Chase era) of the running joke "Our top story tonight: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is STIIIIIIILLLL Dead!"

I guess it might be testimony supporting the "tacky-fication" of America. But it was damn funny because, for better or worse, the Generalissimo's looooooonnnnnnggg and irreversible decline had slowly turned into the never-ending story. He lingered for months. Could go at any moment. And nothing happened and nothing changed. It became darkly comical. So the "STIIIILLLLLLL Dead!" thing got HUGE laughs. Gallows humor for sure. Release of tension perhaps. Laughing in the face of death, which did inevitably come to the Generalissimo. Nobody lives forever. But in his case, some of us were starting to wonder...

The Malaysian plane story dragged on, I think, because CNN knew that international stories were its forte so they did what the media usually does: beat it to absolute pulpy powdery death. Beyond the point where there was anything significant to cover. They turn it into a farce. And as many of us are manifesting shorter-attention-spans, we're realizing the story doesn't have a tidy resolution the way all the 30- or 60-minute dramas do. So we lose patience when there's no nice clean tidy payoff with minimal delay.

...I think.

[smallcat88]

7. Well, that could mean several things . . .

Slow news month - possibly.

A bunch of Fox viewers just wised up and grew brain cells - highly unlikely.

A lot of old people just died.

Umm . . . Wonder which one it could be?

[Uncle Joe]

9. The Internet is having a growing influence at the expense of cable news, and not just FOX,

although they're being damaged the most because their all out conservative, corporate supremacist dogma is most opposed to actual reason, and the Internet fosters reason, via increased literacy and mass debate.

P.S. That's why they're trying to kill Net Neutrality in an effort to put the genie back in the bottle.

[smallcat88]

11. I know

was just trying to make a joke.

As it happens I'm one of those people who cut the cord last year. But I've found sites where I can live stream all the 24 hour news channels. Guess which one I don't bother with?

Does anyone know if live streaming counts as ratings?

[malaise]

8. But but but

The war criminal of a dick loves them

[muntrv]

10. And yet they bring in Stacy Dash of "CLUELESS." How appropriate.

[L0oniX]

13. LOL

[Bad Thoughts]

12. The solution: Obamacard

Fox should support efforts to improve the life expectancy of their audience.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

17. "...their Great Blonde Hope (Kelly),...with her typical viewer voyeur being over 70."

[font size=12 color=red]BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!![/font]

[elias49]

19. ..give a dog a bone..

nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

31. The MEN who decided to hire her are 70+ too....

It's like watching a husband buy his wife the drill he wanted.

[RainDog]

20. k&r n/t

[maced666]

22. These fox downfall memes come along a few times a year. For over a decade.

I've learned to ignore them after the first couple of years, having football yanked from underfoot at last second.
They've been on top so long it just doesn't matter anymore, really.
They appear to have no influence in elections. For the most part we keep winning elections.
Stop giving them a win by predicting another 'fox is over' stampede because for over a decade, those that do are the ones stomped on when ratings come out.

[Jamaal510]

25. Regardless

of whichever network leads in ratings, their audience amounts to what--less than 1% of all Americans? That is very little influence, indeed. At one point, FOX even had lower ratings than a kids' show, despite being the highest rated news network.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

32. Correction: CABLE news network.

People don't pay for cable to watch the news. They do it for sports and movies. Network news often gets 3 to 10 times the ratings of cable news which isn't really news, it's ratings driven infotainment.

[Cha]

23. Where would the gop be without its fox "news" propaganda machine?!

thanks babylonsistah

[MADem]

26. Ha ha ha!! And wait till the days get longer, they'll be sitting on lawn chairs outdoors and

watching the cars go by! Or driving down to the beach or lake and sitting in the car, reading the paper!! Then going to the ice cream stand and having a cone!!!

Watch those ratings drop even further....!!!!!!

[Kath1]

27. Exactly!

All of my friends consider the network a joke and most of them are in their 50s. They lament that their brainwashed parents watch it.

[cascadiance]

28. It would interesting to see how well RT and Al Jazeera, amongst others did during this time too...

Probably still pretty low ratings, but since Al Jazeera got added to satellite services and some cable systems when Current TV went away, it would be interesting to see if they picked up some of that reduced audience.

[Enthusiast]

33. TPTB will continue their propaganda through network news and the other cable news networks

even if Fox fails completely. Still, it's good news.

[Gothmog]

34. The Fox News audience is dying off

I love the fact that the average age of an O'Reilly viewer is 72

[calimary]

49. And that old for miss meGYN, too.

Her target demographic turns out to be a bunch of dirty old men! ROFLMAO!!!!!!! She gets the Desperately Seeking Cialis crowd! The DWINDLING Desperately Seeking Cialis crowd! Seems somehow a most fetching fit.

[blkmusclmachine]

37. Faux Nooz

[YOHABLO]

39. Well perhaps the 25-54 year old demo is going online for their news .. I know I do.

I hope I live to see the day when FOX is sold and News Corp goes out of business. You think? How old is Murdoch anyway?

[calimary]

48. I find myself wondering that fairly frequently. How old is he? Well, he won't be around forever.

rupert murdoch is rawther elderly. He won't be around too much longer, in any event. He has kids. I find myself wondering what kind of fighting might result over the will. Does that suggest the empire might split up? Will one heir take over complete control of all of it? He's got to have made plans. Too shrewd not to. But you never know. My fantasy, of course, is one of his heirs does a hostile takeover of News Corp, and - what if that heir was more liberal in his/her politics? Maybe wanting to dick around with Pox Noise's format or slant or whatever? Or maybe they're not quite as savvy in business and they fuck it all up and lose it all? I'm sure the koch brothers or adelson or somebody would want to buy it and keep it intact and that level of fiend certainly has enough money for it.

But one can certainly dream, can't one?

[kairos12]

42. Kids are moving back in and changing the channel to Family Guy. Hilarity ensues.

[chknltl]

43. Maybe Fox News should air more Kool Aid ads. nt

[barbtries]

44. maybe media matters and such organizations

are just finally getting through. i hope so. fox is so destructive.

[Scurrilous]

45. Good news!

[Yavin4]

46. More blondes with shorter skirts

Crank up the factory.

[antiGOPin294]

47. This is karma for all the BS Faux News has pumped out over the past 20 years or so.

I hope I live to see the day when this pathetic, sorry excuse of a "news network" goes out of business for good. It has poisoned the minds of so many people in this country. Anyway, it's good to see that more and more Americans are waking up and are no longer buying into the tripe Fox spews on TV.