O’Reilly’s ratings freefall

May 11, 2005

One of the more common concerns I receive via email is that I don’t offer enough good news here at The Carpetbagger Report. Fair enough; here’s news, by way of Think Progress, that should make a lot of people happy.

The ratings for Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show have fallen so fast since the election, one CNN insider said O’Reilly was “hemorrhaging viewers.” Here are the monthly averages for “The Factor” since last fall:

October: 3,166,000
November: 3,080,000
December: 2,610,000
January: 2,478,000
February: 2,391,000
March: 2,320,000
April: 2,178,000
May-to-date: 2,096,000

Proving, however, that every silver lining had a cloud, the news is not all good. Even with the dramatic drop in viewers, O’Reilly is still easily winning his time slot. His 2 million viewers far exceeds the numbers for his primary competition — CNN’s Paula Zahn and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann — combined. Times three.

I said it was good news; not great news.

Dear Carpet Bagging Steve,

Why should it be bad news that Paula Zahn or Keith Olbermann still lag behind O’Reilly ?

People moving away completely from those “political” talk shows IS the great news. I would more ambivalent if that cool million pairs of eyeballs was simply moving to Zahn or Olbermann. If O’Reilly is hemorrhaging, it means that this awful format is loosing its appeal and competing channels may end up simply dumping that format all together. Ok, I’m probably dreaming there but that would be absolutely awesome news. Better nothing than those shows which are positively hurting democracy.

  • I have to agree with Fifi. If those viewers are instead turning their eyes to something outdoorsy or social, or just Cartoon Network, or even professional wrestling, that’s progress.

    And I like the idea of good news. I always try to read everything in your blog, but all the bad news about the GOP’s incredulous win record does get depressing.

  • I’d like to think that they’re watching good television too (although Olberman is a lot more irreverent and classy than O’Reilly), but it’s probably just election fatigue. Of course the ratings were going to be up during the election and innauguration, and the Schiavo thing got a lot of people interested again, too. O’Reilly is probably just starting to get back to where he should be viewers-wise – about 1.75 million.

  • I’m a little off topic here, but Air America Radio is doing really well, which can be streamed off the internets for those of us here that don’t have the show broadcast locally.

    And Steve I may have missed it, but keep letting us know when you are going to be on Barry’s show so that I can tune in.

  • The Daily Kos hit rate has increased in the same time period. Maybe we can hope that more people are looking to the net for their news, and turning away from the MSM.

  • –
    Help YOUR hope … that more people are looking to net news and away from MSM. Talk to your peoples. Help your hope. Show them net news.

    BOYCOTT Cable TV is a teeny tiny bit of O’Nazi’s lost ratings. It would be sweet if the whole Cable TV cartel and all the people slaved in its jobs got BOYCOTTed to shut down and they could all point at O’Nazi is to blame. Murdoch and Ailes should coronary. BOYCOTT Cable TV — save yourself some Big Bucks. Spend them on you, meet a friend, talk news, person to person.
    –

  • Meremark

    Believe me, I have persuaded people to get their news from the net. In fact, some people think I’m a pest about it, and others have gotten connected just to shut me up.

  • I think a somebody else hit it on the head when they said it was election fatigue. Excitement was built up, and people were tuning in, not just to O’reilly, but to political “news” shows in general. And while, any bad news for B.O. is good news to me, I don’t think there’s much to this one. People are just back to not caring about politics.

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