Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Totally unrelated, these things are

FiveThirtyEight: "The scoreboard so far in July: Fox News has 95 mentions of impeachment, and MSNBC 448."

Daily Caller: "MSNBC Suffers Lowest Monthly Ratings In Nearly A Decade."

2 comments:

Nielsen nothings said...

"MSNBC Suffers Lowest Monthly Ratings In Nearly A Decade."

In daytime ratings, the least important. Not the whole daytime rating, either, just a slice thereof: the 25-54 demographic. Daily Caller wasn’t forthcoming on the math, so I’ll help. It means that during the day, since last year, MSNBC lost a whopping... drum roll...18,000 viewers.

While touting Fox’s slight rise in prime time, Daily Caller neglects to mention that MSNBC is also up in prime time, also slightly, with all three of its shows posting increases. In all cases, for all cable news channels, in all time slots, the audiences are small and the changes in viewership totals are smaller.

What if Fox, CNN and MSNBC’s combined prime time viewing audience (all ages) was concentrated into one show? Answer: It would have ranked 118th in the 2013-14 Nielsens. That’s one slot worse than “The Michael J. Fox Show,” which was cancelled mid-season and yanked from the schedule; seven completed episodes never aired.

The picture isn’t nearly that rosy for cable news, since it has among the grayest audiences on television. An average Fox viewer is 69 years old, the oldest of any American channel. CNN and MSNBC are both 60+. This explains all the (low-paying) ads for safe and convenient walk-in bathtubs.

The fixation on the cable news “ratings battle” is exclusively a by-product of Team Red vs. Team Blue. It’s navel gazing at its most insignificant.

Oh, the drama! Who’ll come out on top? It’s like a three-way Ultimate Fighting cage match between two competitors with no limbs (MSNBC, CNN) and one with a single arm (Fox).

Eric said...

Your analysis is unimpeachable.

Unlike Obama.