Charles C.W. Cooke: "All the facts fit to delete - When the truth is too objectionable to print."
A while ago I read an article about how newspapers would report the last meal to condemned prisoners. It was the kind of minutiae that readers wanted to know and the media provided the information. Now I guess it's considered somehow objectionable to know that Timothy McVeigh ate two pints of mint and chocolate chip ice cream before they slipped the needle in. The media made the decision that's not "news."
Now details are expunged from the public record if they fail to fit a mold on the newsroom floor. Is it any wonder that the public's faith in the American media is at an all-time low?
Well, except for Fox News.
Extra - From Hot Air.
13 comments:
Is it any wonder that the public's faith in the American media is at an all-time low?
Well, except for Fox News.
The top-rated program on Fox News is "The O'Reilly Factor," which generally has less than 3 million viewers. The United States population is 314 million. That's a very particular expression of public faith you're citing.
At its peak, for one hour, Fox News' viewership just about matches the population of Nevada.
The average Fox News viewer is 68.8 years old, easily the oldest of any American TV channel. The median age of an O'Reilly viewer is higher: 72.1. Only a fifth of Fox's viewers are under 55 years old. This explains why Fox has so many ads for reverse mortgages and catheters, and not so many ads for beer and cars. Newspapers, oldies radio, religious programming and cable TV news have loyal core audiences, but they're old and they're small and they don't attract big advertising dollars.
In the past four years, more than six million people have dropped their cable TV subscriptions. This decline is pronounced among younger viewers. This unprecedented downturn is occurring even as the number of U.S. households rises, and it helps to explain Fox's recent improvement. Their audience is holding steady, while cable's as a whole is falling.
A win is a win is a win, but a little context never hurts.
Wow! Obsessed, much?
He reported. You decided... not to think about it.
It's easier to hold opinions about how the media works if you don't know how the media works.
So now you've got a sock puppet who backs you up. Desperate times, desperate times.
The good news: so far, Fox News’ 2014 prime time audience is higher than it was in 2013.
The bad news: Fox News’ prime time audience is lower than it was in 2012, and in 2011, and 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007... okay, you get the idea. In its surge to the top, Fox has lost over 850,000 viewers.
Fox’s history-making ratings victory covers July through September of this year. Let's compare that quarterly dominance to a previous quarter.
2014, Q1: Fox News had 1,804,000 prime time viewers, the fifth best for any cable channel.
2014, Q3: Fox News had 1,790,000 prime time viewers, the #1 best for any cable channel.
So, here’s your math problem for today: what ELSE would have had to happen to make this possible?
So you imply Fox News appeals primarily to old people. There must be something about news slanted towards the party that wants to take away Medicare and Social Security, that just appeals to geezers.
Despite that though, according to the linked Hollywood Reporter article, among the under-55 set, Fox news is up 12% from a year ago. Yes, from among the same under-55 crowd that is dwindling because it's abandoning cable, Fox has gotten a 12% increase. Meanwhile, liberal darling MSNBC experienced a 21% decline among that same under-55 audience.
But maybe if we look at audience totals instead of percentages, it won't look so bad for MSNBC. So according to the same source, Fox has a primetime audience of 313,000 in that under-55 group. For MSNBC, the primetime under-55 audience comes in at...
at...
at...
at...
um, at...
150.
That's right, the standard-bearer of liberal punditry's total is one hundred and fifty viewers. Across. The. Broad. Expanse. Of. America.
That would seem to say something about the "public's faith in American media" and Fox vs. the alternatives, would it not? Or maybe you could provide "a little context" to clear things up.
Sure. First off, I don't "imply" that Fox appeals primarily to old people - I say it explicitly. Or rather, the numbers do. But that's not a unique problem to Fox. MSNBC (62.5) and CNN (62.8) are also among TV’s oldest audiences. The medium of cable news is disproportionately viewed by the cast of “Cocoon.” Why Fox is so many years older than its two peers requires more analysis, but all three channels certainly do run a lot of ads where widows advise each other about affordable burial insurance.
Why is Fox News up 12% in the 25-to-54 demographic from a year ago? Mostly because its audience cratered a year ago. The 2013 ratings were Fox News’ lowest annual numbers ever. They lost 29% of their 25-to-54-year-old viewers from 2012 to 2013. This year, they’ve gotten 12% of them back. Is that enough context, or in your mind, “context”?
That would seem to say something about the "public's faith in American media" and Fox vs. the alternatives
Notice that “s” there on the end of “alternatives”? Cable news is a three-way competition, and CNN and MSNBC have a slightly larger combined 25-to-54 audience than Fox News. This doesn’t mean Fox isn’t #1 by a wide margin. It is. It trounces its direct competition. But Fox News being the most popular cable news channel is not equivalent to conservative news being the most popular.
Also, this is a battle of the midgets: Pile the conservative viewers and the liberals together, and all three channels combined attract an audience that wouldn’t crack the Nielsen weekly Top 100.
I need to break this to you gently: it’s not 150 prime time viewers in the 24-to-55 category for MSNBC, it’s 150,000. Breitbart was so eager to toot Fox’s horn that they omitted a few zeroes from the Hollywood Reporter article they were citing. Next time, be a little less...
credulous...
about...
a...
totally...
ridiculous...
number.
And. Follow. The. Links.
You were so busy typing dramatic periods and ellipses in your response that you totally forgot to answer your math problem. That’s okay, here’s another:
In 2010, the average Fox News viewer was 65.
In 2012, it was 66.
In 2014, it is 68.8.
And yet the channel’s under-55 audience just rocketed up by an astonishing 37,000 over last year’s Q3. (37,000! That’s the same size as the population of Roy City, Utah!)
Your replacement math question: How much higher would the median Fox News viewer be if it HADN’T gotten such a gigantic increase in its under-55 viewership?
Why is Fox News up 12% in the 25-to-54 demographic from a year ago? Mostly because its audience cratered a year ago. LOL. Because that's just naturally what happens after an audience "craters", right? It bounces right back. And to think of all those TV show producers that reacted to declining ratings by cancelling their shows. If they had only known the great secret.
Cable news is a three-way competition...Fox News being the most popular cable news channel is not equivalent to conservative news being the most popular. Another LOL. That's like saying "Apple iPhone is not the most popular phone because Android sells more phones over multiple manufacturers." And only by cherry-picking the numbers can you avoid the reality that their audience exceeds those of CNN and MSNBC combined.
Also, this is a battle of the midgets..." Look at it this way. If a national poll of preferences can be pretty accurate by using a sample of, say, 1800 people, then a "poll" of news provider preference using a sample of millions of people says something quite convincing. So yeah, it's equivalent to "conservative news being the most popular". Or if you prefer, you could maintain that they just do such a better job at the news business that their handicap of being slightly right of center is outweighed. It's got to be one or the other.
Breitbart was so eager to toot Fox’s horn that they omitted a few zeroes from the Hollywood Reporter article they were citing. Really? Follow. The. Link. to the Hollywood Reporter story and tell me the number isn't given as 150 in the tabulation at the bottom. Sure, it did seem preposterous to me when I saw it, but we're talking about MSNBC here. And yes, I know they included the missing zeros when they mentioned the number in the text of the article. To quote the great Neil deGrasse Tyson, "my bad."
LOL number three - to be honest with you, I have no clue what your original math question was about, even after seeing the answer. And the second one makes no more sense. But they apparently have great meaning to you, so, there's that.
to be honest with you, I have no clue what your original math question was about, even after seeing the answer. And the second one makes no more sense.
Yes, the honesty just radiates from your words.
Math situation #1: Fox News just moved up four slots to #1 in cable channel viewership, even though its viewership went down.
Math situation #2: Fox News picked up more younger viewers, yet their median viewer age continues to rise.
Without context - horrible, horrible context - both of those results are baffling. And yet... could there be something else going on to explain the numbers? Your answer: “I don’t get it, and I don’t want to.”
(Free clue: If you’re driving on a road, but the other cars around you start driving backwards, it doesn’t mean your car is now going faster.)
(Free clue #2: You have a hundred gray crayons. If you then add ten more gray crayons and one healthy young pink crayon, you’re going to draw a bad rainbow.)
Cable news is a three-way competition...Fox News being the most popular cable news channel is not equivalent to conservative news being the most popular.
Another LOL. That's like saying "Apple iPhone is not the most popular phone because Android sells more phones over multiple manufacturers."
No, it isn’t like saying that. In this silly comparison, the iPhone is Fox News, Samsung is CNN, and LG is MSNBC. Okay, what about Motorola? And who’s HTC? Both of them hold a share of the smartphone market that’s eight to nine times bigger than Fox News’ percentage of cable viewers, let alone #4 Headline News and whoever’s #5. But if we do include two more cable news channels to make your Android angle work, it bumps Fox’s share of viewers lower. Also, Apple doesn’t have to argue that a better-selling category of phones (from CBS, NBC and ABC) don’t count. What a terrific analogy. All the phones in America = three cable TV channels? Nice try.
Here’s the simple slapdown: Apple has 41% of the market, way more than anybody else. Therefore Apple is the #1 company, but they DON’T have more than half of the market.
Meanwhile, Roger Ailes would tongue-wash Barack Obama’s rectum at the Reagan Library if it would give him 5% of the cable TV market.
LOL. Because that's just naturally what happens after an audience "craters", right? It bounces right back. And to think of all those TV show producers that reacted to declining ratings by cancelling their shows.
Equating an entire channel’s average weekly rating with an individual show’s particular rating in a single time slot? Great call, Fred Silverman. That’s why, when Conan O’Brien’s ratings were too low, they cancelled NBC.
Think about doing a little less LOL-ing and a little more remedial study. You might even discover that it’s commonplace for news ratings to be erratic. A particular example comes to mind:
Fox News’ average prime time viewership:
2012: 2,071,000
2013: 1,097,000
2014: 1,727,000 (thru 3 quarters)
Your disbelieving quotation marks around the word “craters” would be a devastating rebuttal, except that you’re utterly wrong. Fox DID crater, and Fox DID bounce right back. ROFL! (Ratings Often Fluctuate, Learner)
only by cherry-picking the numbers can you avoid the reality that their audience exceeds those of CNN and MSNBC combined.
They’re YOUR cherry-picked numbers. You used under-55 as the baseline five times in two paragraphs. I went with that. But now you want to change cherries to total audience - okay, I can switch, too.
We mustn’t avoid reality, we must embrace it. CNN and MSNBC haven’t combined to have more prime time viewers than Fox News since...April to June 2014.
Let’s go further back into reality. In Q1 of this year, Fox had more than its two rivals combined. But for the entire year of 2013, CNN-MSNBC was 200,000+ ahead. Oh, America’s faith! Why are you so fickle?
Also, this is a battle of the midgets..."
Look at it this way. If a national poll of preferences can be pretty accurate by using a sample of, say, 1800 people, then a "poll" of news provider preference using a sample of millions of people says something quite convincing. So yeah, it's equivalent to "conservative news being the most popular".
WTF? First smartphones, now TV ratings should be read like a political poll?
Despite how the 2012 primaries sometimes felt, there aren’t a lot of narional polls with 300 listed candidates. Nielsen compiles one every week.
As for popularity, the nightly network news shows get ten times O’Reilly’s audience, in a worse time slot. The morning network chatty news shows “out-poll” Fox & Friends by almost 15 to 1. And those shows are not even included in Nielsen’s network prime time tabulations, where Fox’s top-rated “O’Reilly Factor” would rank 151st in total viewers, 174th (of 181) in the 25-to-54 demo. Cable news sure is popular!
We’d better toss out those “MSM” network candidates who hog the best polling percentages, the way Obama and Romney did. A little trimming, a little unskewing, and we’ll eventually end up with a cable-level Herman Cain vs. Dennis Kucinich vs. Tom Vilsack three-way - a much more accurate parallel to the nightly Bill O’Reilly/Anderson Cooper/Chris Hayes apocalypse. That epic struggle will tell us everything we need to know about how the United States wants its news!
Using your dippy poll sample theory, Fox News’ industry-leading conservative reporting currently enjoys the “endorsement” of 0.7% of the American public. Your enthusiasm about your team beating MSNBC doesn’t change the way TV ratings work. Yale might be the #1 Ivy League football team this season. Yale might win every game 70-0. And the NCAA, the BCS rankings, and the national advertisers won’t give a shit. One might go as far as to say that the Ivy League football title is, within the context of American sport, a battle of midgets.
**Phew!** You were right, context DOES take effort!
Think about doing a little less LOL-ing and a little more remedial study. You might even discover that it’s commonplace for news ratings to be erratic. A particular example comes to mind:
Fox News’ average prime time viewership:
2012: 2,071,000
2013: 1,097,000
2014: 1,727,000 (thru 3 quarters)
LOL, LOL, LOL! So I challenge you about your claim that the rebound in Fox's audience happened "because" their audience had dropped the previous year (and remember, that was your claim, not "news ratings can be erratic"). Your response is to say that's the kind of thing that happens all the time. And your evidence of that is, the recent rebound in Fox's audience!
But more importantly, I'd like you to take a step back and look at your utter, absolute obsession with (by your account) a tiny news channel on a shrinking medium, that is only watched by old people anyway. Nothing to see there, right? Yet your entire world must be threatened by the mere existence of Fox News.
It's all the same ball of wax, genius. A channel can't rebound unless it's gone down first.
This is good news for you, though. You have nowhere to go but up.
After being crushed by the data and the context, you could have retreated, or simply not replied. Instead, you shifted right along to the next box ("you're just obsessed/jealous") on the boilerplate Troll Checklist.
I'll try to recover from the blow. My entire world has included being paid for my dissection of TV ratings (although I'm clearly slumming here). Maybe I can use that money for the psychiatric care I need. As for you, take your whipping like a man, and try not to be such an internet cliche.
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