MSNBC Tops Fox News In The Demo Two Nights In A Row (Maddow Topped O'Reilly & Hannity)

[kpete]

Source: Huffington Post

Is a shift happening in the normally frozen-in-place world of cable news ratings?

It's hard to tell, but something unexpected has happened over the last two days: MSNBC has beaten Fox News in the all-important A25-54 category two nights in a row.

TVNewser was the first to spot the trend. While it may not seem like too big a deal for MSNBC to jump ahead of Fox News, it's rather surprising that it is happening at all. The total dominance of Roger Ailes' network is one of the biggest articles of faith in the television business. As Alex Weprin wrote, "The number one show in the demo on cable news is always, always "The O'Reilly Factor" unless there is some sort of unusual news event or huge booking."

But, on both Monday and Tuesday -- with neither a huge news event nor a huge booking -- MSNBC beat Fox News. Rachel Maddow's ratings in the demo on Tuesday were better than Bill O'Reilly's and Sean Hannity's. Lawrence O'Donnell's were better than Greta van Susteren's. Overall, MSNBC beat Fox News 575,000 to 526,000.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/20/msnbc-tops-fox-news-in-th_n_1899889.html

[itssimplestupid]

1. I Know Why

Fox's viewers are dying off.....

[BlueStreak]

6. Faux viewers feel so bad about all the government assistance they are receiving

that they are ending it all.

Seriously, that must be a huge case of cognitive dissonance. I bet two-thirds of their audience fits into Romney's "47%", but most of them are too stupid to even know he's talking about them.

[onehandle]

13. Right. The only people I know that watch Faux are over 70.

The end is nigh.

[calimary]

20. Welcome to DU!

Their pool of interest is declining because of the older demos they cater to. The same sort of (mainly) male embittered, resentful closet-racists (who now have another excuse to resent minorities and women for "taking their jobs&quot . And Pox loves to exploit this demographic and prey upon their insecurities and YES, their own self-proclaimed "victimhood." Yep, it's THEIR side that's always whining and playing the victim with all these imagined and presumed "grievances" about this fer-ners and n-words and Muslims and Mexicans and uppity women who should really know their place.

Nobody plays the "victim" card like the republi-CONS - that's what's so astoundingly absurd about wrongney's private-meeting blather that we saw on that video. NOBODY plays the "victim" card, or embraces it SO desperately, and carries on about all their many grievances against that shitty awful librul media/librul takeover/librul fill-in-the-blank-here-as the-situation-warrants. NOBODY has more imagined "grievances" than these people. It's just dumb-founding.

Anyway, we're glad you're here, we need you, and you know what to do.



Now get to work.

[IfPalinisAnswerWatsQ]

25. Damnit

You beat me to it. I was gonna say, when the majority of your viewers are senior citizens, that's not a good recipe for show longetivity. I don't know anyone my age (late 20s) who watches FOX News. Granted, most of my friends and acquaintances don't watch MSNBC either, but at least a few watch it along with me. The MSNBC audience has to be younger on average.

[defacto7]

31. And it makes me feel young too!

Hell, I've never watched FOX more than I was forced to in a public place and I'm no spring chicken either you whipper snapper! I know a lot of over 50's who don't watch Fux spew. I think it has more to do with region and education. I wouldn't argue the age influence; there's a correlation, but don't make it sound like ALL old folks are stupid and out of touch.

And don't underestimate the under 30's that are addicted to right wing bull shit. I'm around them all the time and I move around a lot.

[IfPalinisAnswerWatsQ]

33. Lol

I never said that all old folks are stupid and out of touch. The majority of Faux News viewers are over 65, but that doesn't mean that the majority of senior citizens subscribe to those views. The percentage of the population that regularly watches ANY of the cable news channels is very small. Most Americans who watch TV news still get it from one of the big 3 (NBC, ABC, CBS).

There may be some under 30s that are addicted to right-wing BS but most of them aren't watching FOX News. Look at the Tea Party rallies. Very few under 40s at those things.

I think that most 65+ers do lean Republican now. The solidly Republican ones, it seems, are often apathetic toward the concerns of people my age. Their general attitude seems to be, "I've got my Medicare and Social Security, so screw off."

[defacto7]

34. Well there you go again!! ha...

You pretty much have it down. I don't disagree with your summation.. I'm not sure by your last paragraph whether you don't have some sort of bias though. Fact are facts and you have those strait but there's a leeeetle anger there too.

Apathy, could be true too, but look where they came from.. this country was a island in the middle of the planet... everything was nice and pretty. Now it's the earth itself that's the island. Those protective borders are not there anymore and at that stage of life it's scary to think of change. At some point in life people don't want to fight anymore, they want to settle down and let their kids take over. Then they are bombarded by fear tactics of the right and oh, don't they sound like such nice young men

Part of that is the fault of belief systems and part is a system that promotes single interest, not the whole. All you can do is lead, try to educate them as best you can. But you don't get very far with the older crowd by pushing, they do push back and it's with the only thing they know. The right wing know this and they just bait away with fear.

[bemildred]

2. Rachel kicked some ass last night.

It was beautiful.

[itssimplestupid]

11. You Should Have Seen Steware - On Hannity

Jon Stewart showed Hannity pissing off the 47%. His viewers..... Couldn't stop laughing.

http://www.RepublicansAreADisease.com

Rachel is great.

[bemildred]

12. Yeah, I missed john.

But I sat through MSNBC from 3:00 to 9:00 last night, and I don't watch TV much.

[soleft]

3. Rachel

[BlueStreak]

4. It is 3 nights in a row for The Last Word

Including last Thursday.

Remember that MSNBC had a really large audience for the DNC. A lot of those viewers are sticking. After the election, it will probably settle back to just the hard core junkies, and Faux will have a lot more people needing their daily fix of Bullshit Mountain.

[monmouth]

5. Repubs are wondering why they are so surprised that the President is polling so much higher

than Romney. Their usual news viewing has not mentioned this possibility at all. What's going on? Let's try MSNBC to see what they are saying, perhaps they know why.... Some people are just tired of being lied to and are expanding their viewing habits. I expect this winning trend of MSNBC to continue, best political coverage from Martin on through the evening.

[rurallib]

7. Incredible considering MSNBC is on far less cable outlets

and costs extra on Dish (don't know about Direct-tv).

bigger numbers in toto out of a smaller population.

[BrooklynBoy]

8. An Overstatement Perhaps...

If this trend continues, it will be the biggest, most significant and promising development in this country since the election of FDR in 1932. This gives me hope. More so than the election of Obama and Warren and the defeat of Cantor, Ryan and Bachman combined.

[xxqqqzme]

9. The disgusted, now former,

republican in our local campaign office buying yard signs and bumper stickers, said he had stopped tuning in to f** because he realized it was poisoning his mind.

The 47% remark sent him over the edge. Everything after that just sort of fell in to place.

[marions ghost]

16. Like that commercial with the frying pan that whacks people...

[Liberalagogo]

10. Maddow Topped O'Reilly & Hannity

That's not a pretty picture.

Not Maddow of course, just the thought of O'Reilly and Hannity bottoming (which in and of itself, is no surprise).

[SayitAintSo]

14. Holy guacamole

I would have thought Chris Matthews would be in the mix there.

[marions ghost]

17. And Big Ed

I think Ed is getting through to the older generation like my MIL who like their sound bites straightforward (and loud).

She goes around saying "Stop watching Fox & start watching Ed."

[liberallibral]

15. Unfortunately, FAUX SNOOZE still dominates in the overall ratings, by several million...

But nice to see MSNBC is coming along!!! FOX's viewers are mostly friggin' old people and zombies...

[AAO]

23. Mostly old people...

everyday morans, and car dealerships, and other businesses owned by the right-wing nuts.

[liberallibral]

30. Yep!!!

[Kingofalldems]

18. Could it be that many have gotten wise

to the BS Network and their lies?

[maxsolomon]

19. I tuned in because I like to watch the GOP destroy itself

Otherwise, I don't watch.

[PatSeg]

21. This is actually better than it appears

Many, if not most hospitals, hotels, and businesses don't offer MSNBC, but they all carry FOX. Also some businesses play FOX News all the time and that artificially boosts their ratings.

[JDPriestly]

22. How do they calculate the ratings?

[torotoro]

29. Here is what i know

They use a pre-selected sample of people who have these set top boxes. As they watch tv the data is sent back and a national average is interpolated based on this small sample. Can it be incorrect? Yes. But they seem to have enough of a sample that people are so predictable that it can be applied accurately enough for a nation.

[qb]

24. FAUX viewers are starting to realize the rest of the country is laughing at them.

ridicule can be a powerful motivator!

[Hutzpa]

26. This is one of the best news of the day

the saga continues MSNBC, do not let off now.

[Jennicut]

27. Rachel is awesome. And she has a big appeal to younger viewers.

Faux skews much older in general, I think average age of their viewers is 65.

[BigD_95]

28. This is good news

I think Lawrence O'Donnell has the best show out of everyone. I also like the Hardball show alot & have become a big fan of Al Sharptons show.

[defacto7]

32. If we're lucky....

the curiosity of the lost is being perked! If so, we've got a new audience that wouldn't normally watch lefty stuff. That means... MAYBE WE'RE GETTING THEIR ATTENTION! finally!

Take advantage of it Rachel!

[Born Free]

35. Great Job !

The only political show I Tivo these days is The Young Turks, but I watch the web version of TRMS daily via one of our Roku channels, if they would remove it from the Roku I will start to Tivo it too.

[Bandit]

36. I am torn these days, I love Rachel and Lawerence and Ed but I also love Viewpoint and the War Room

and the Young Turks.. Every commercial I switch channels between MSNBC and Current..Governor Granholm really rocks my boat but so does Rachel... Torn....

[wordpix]

37. great to learn this, MSNBC has a good lineup & even the day people are great for the most part

Now we need a bipartisan group to counteract Kudlow and friends on CNBC.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

38. The FOX audience is getting too old

There was a poll about 5 years ago that found the median age for an O'Reilly viewer was 72 years old.
As the years go by, you're going to see FOX's ratings continue to slip, as the regular viewers end up in homes.
And all efforts by the right to make conservatism appeal to younger generations (Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, etc) have not pulled off the trick.
I wouldn't be surprised to see MSNBC on top in both demo and total viewers within 5 years.