We learned in August that all was not well in Fox News Land, at least as far as the Republicans’ network’s ratings were concerned. Apparently, matters have not improved since.
Fox News is showing serious signs of aging, led by steep audience declines.
Fox News’s total audience fell 24 percent in the past year, to 1.3 million viewers from 1.7 million, and its key primetime audience, viewers ages 25-54, was down 7 percent in October on a year-to-year basis, to an average 363,000 viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research data.
In third quarter, Fox News suffered a 38 percent decline in 25-54s, to 409,000. In second quarter, that audience was down 22 percent and in first quarter it slid 28 percent.
To be sure, the decline has not been enough to topple Fox News from its perch atop the cable news networks, but it’s nevertheless a sign of progress.
Fox News execs suggest fewer people are tuning in to all cable news, so their decline is not surprising. That might be a compelling explanation, if it were true, but it’s not. Both Headline News and MSNBC were actually up among the 25-54 demo, and while CNN lost viewers, its decline wasn’t nearly as steep as Fox News’.
The next two questions, of course, are why Fox News viewers are going elsewhere and what the far-right network plans to do about it.
On the first point, Media Life suggests disillusionment among the GOP base is causing problems for the news channel.
The news formula that worked for so long is now working against it, they say, as fewer of those disenchanted viewers bother to tune in to watch the news.
“What Fox did so brilliantly was assess both the political and cultural realities of the times when it came on, and then designed a service that perfectly fit a certain niche,” says Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.
“The problem with coming up with a perfect niche that is perfect for the time is that time and culture change. Potentially, you end up positioned with an identity that no longer reflects the reality of the times.”
Judy Daubenmier of News Hounds, a web site often critical of Fox News, agrees.
“Fox News has tied itself so closely to George Bush that when his approval ratings go down people don’t want to hear about him, so they don’t want to watch Fox News,” she says.
That sounds right to me. Republicans who tune in to Fox News for marching orders are disappointed and disheartened, so it stands to reason they’ll be less inclined to get their daily talking points.
It led Billmon to wonder if maybe, just maybe, Fox News will lay off the blatant partisanship.
[T]he problem with Fox News is that it is so identified with the Grand Old Prostitutes and the partisan core of the conservative movement that it it’s hard to imagine how you could tinker with the format or the built-in bias without alienating the channel’s most devoted and loyal viewers.
But when realpolitik and ratings are both pulling in the same direction, you do have to wonder how long the status quo can last. I wouldn’t expect to turn on the tube and find Molly Ivins sitting in Bill O’Reilly’s chair, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if sometime after Nov. 7 the corporate word is quietly handed down to chill the obvious partisanship a little bit. You know: tell Sean Hannity to quit and run for Congress if he wants to spend all his time on the campaign trail, or dump Fred Barnes and bring in some slightly less reactionary gasbag to headline the political BOGSAT shows.
Maybe. Then again, if Dems take back Congress, and the Republican base is enthralled by having someone to hate again, maybe they’ll be storming right back to Fox News to tell them how awful the defeatocrats are.
Stay tuned, so to speak.