Fox News ratings struggling to keep up

April 1, 2008

Following up on an item from the other day, I thought it was worth noting that all three cable networks have seen their ratings go up during the presidential primaries, but among the “money demo,” Fox News is falling behind. (via TP)

The political season continues to be very good to CNN, which will officially announce on Tuesday that for the first time since 2001, it managed to beat the Fox News Channel in prime time for one quarter of the year in the category of news viewers most desirable to advertisers, according to Nielsen.

Thanks to its debate coverage and heavy focus on the presidential primaries, CNN’s ratings in prime time for viewers 25 to 54 were up 90 percent, to an average of 453,000 for the first quarter of 2008. That was enough to edge past the perennial leader, Fox, which had 438,000 viewers, up 12 percent from last year. MSNBC also had a strong quarter in prime time, growing 68 percent to 329,000 viewers. CNN has done especially well on the nights of contested primaries, winning every night in those ratings except one, the Florida primary on Jan. 29. That was the only night when the Republican race was of higher interest than the Democratic one, and Fox won that night.

Among total viewers, Fox News still leads, but hasn’t shown a lot of room for growth beyond its Republican base. Over the last year, FNC’s ratings have gone up 14%, while MSNBC has gone up 59%, and CNN has seen a 67% increase.

Given this, having Democrats win the White House, Senate, and House may be the best thing to ever happen to the Republican network.

But Fox is still strong, and right after November it will probably go right back to being the #1 cable news channel by every measure, for a simple reason: Fox’s audience is monomaniacal about politics, while CNN and MSNBC are drawing viewers during this election season who have other interests in life.

  • There would be no Fox or Rush or many others if they didn’t have their handy scapegoat; the dems. We are evil incarnate.

    It’s going to be an ugly recovery (IF we can get someone to manage a recover at all) and there will be hell to pay. And the Fox’s, Rush’s et al will have a field day. Of course there will never be mention of what it was that got us into this situation to start with.

    Fox slipping now though…music to my ears.

  • Good news! I heard today that Fox “news” has officially decided to renounce their previous legal position that they’re under no obligation whatsoever to avoid distorting the news. They have finally come to the realization that people don’t appreciate being lied to by the news media, and that their ratings have probably suffered because a lot of people can’t tell when they’re lying and when they’re telling the truth.

    And that, of course, is an april fool’s joke

  • My bet is that Countdown with Keith Olbermann would do better if he went back to his muckraking, and leave the horserace crap to the other 23 hours a day.

  • Would a Democratic administration be required to treat Faux News as an actual part of the press rather than as a mouthpiece for the GOP? Cut off their access. Give their credential to Golf Digest or the Impartial Recorder. Turn them into bums stealing scraps of news from the dumpsters behind Olberman’s show

  • Their ratings will go through the roof when they take charge of “reporting” from the Dem Convention in Denver. Whatever possessed Dems to let them is beyond my comprehension. Truly mind boggling (or “mind buggering”, as I used to say before the years in VA had their effect on both my command of English and my manners)

  • dis ist gutte, ya?
    faux noise is taking a hit because a lot of people are boycotting them because of their coverage on the election… it’s funny because i know a lot of us are also boycotting their sponsors. i wonder if that has anything to do with the consumer confidence numbers… lol

  • I know several people who watch Fox News as their only news source. Sure they’re a little dense to put it nicely, but when you consider that even at the top of their game, they garner less than 500,000 viewers, that’s a rather small percentage of the overall population. In my opinion, you have to compare the news coverage viewers from Fox to the total of all the other news channels combined. Why? Because none of the other channels are distorting the news the way Fox does. When you look at it that way, they’re not all that scary.

    Maybe there’s still hope for America?

  • This is most likely due to the Democratic race for the President being so hotly contested. Once it is resolved, it will be interesting to see if the current ratings trend is sustained.

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