Rod Dreher

The ‘New Conversation’ On Marriage

Fox’s Decline

By Rod Dreher • January 30, 2013, 3:56 PM

With January complete, Fox News has completed 11 straight years of being number one in cable news in both primetime and total day. That said, the network saw significant ratings declines in January–particularly in the pivotal adults 25-54 demographic–though its perch remains unthreatened for now.

Liberals shouldn’t be pleased, necessarily. Fox is still No. 1 in cable news. What I’d like to know (but don’t have time to look up right this moment) is how is the overall viewership for cable news doing. Is the audience constant, only shifting to MSNBC and CNN? Or is it declining overall?

I never watch cable news, and rarely watch network news. It’s not for ideological reasons. Rather, I get my news almost entirely online, except for when I’m driving, and listen to NPR. True, I do look at the websites for Fox, CNN, and the networks, but that’s not the same thing as sitting down to watch the show. I’m 45, and I associate Fox-watching with my parents’ generation — it’s always on over there — and the demographics research bears that out.

What do you think?

74 Responses to Fox’s Decline

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Bagby says:

January 30, 2013 at 9:31 pm

I am 30 and have never owned a television. Fox was recently the standard fare at work until one of the employees began fantasizing aloud about emptying a clip into the President. The channel was then changed, but it seemed to me that this sort of breakdown was rather inevitable considering what was said on Fox. My co-worker believes that the president is demonic and out to destroy all she holds dear. She is a religious watcher of Fox. She is also in her sixties.

My peers and I recognize Fox as a voice of hysteria, and tend to see the anchors as lickspittles. The only people I know who admire the likes of Hannity and O’Reilly are those old enough to be my grandparents or parents, but I do not search to talk of such non-entities. Let me retreat to claiming that the only people whose political conversation is filled with the views of O’Reilly or who recommend O’Reilly as a sage are those aforementioned generations. Those of “paleo-conservative” sentiments, in my experience, have taken their refuge and their information in books and blogs.
Traddy Catholic in Cleveland says:

January 30, 2013 at 9:37 pm

I love reading religious blogs and religious specific news. Basically, I am convinced that the major civilization currents are religion and science, and most everything else is fluff that won’t survive more than a short while. The Catholic newsies (LifeNews, Crisis, First Things, The Remnant, New Oxford Review, St.A.R., Gilbert) really help one keep tabs on the reality of religious freedom, the eugenicists’ program in the world, the intellectual muck that pretentiously pawns itself off as enlightened.

If you want to even begin to understand the middle east, you have to be reading the Jewish blogosphere from far left to far right.
jaybird says:

January 30, 2013 at 9:40 pm

ksat: I used to watch Fox all the time, but no longer. One problem is that Fox’s prime time lineup hasn’t changed for years.

Same here – while I have never been on the same page as Fox politically, I used to watch O’Reilly regularly when he first started, and there was a time when that network actually offered a fresh perspective: say, from when they first aired in 1996 until after 9-11, IMO. Then they went completely overboard with the GOP-sanctioned talking points all day, everyday.

Now I can’t tolerate any of the cable shout-fests at all, left or right. Most of my breaking news comes via this site, the Atlantic, Sullivan, Gawker, etc. If I want to follow up on anything more in-depth, then I’ll go to cnn.com or wsj or bbc or al jazeera, etc.
MikeS says:

January 30, 2013 at 9:42 pm

I basically never watch TV anymore. I’m spoiled by all the information I can get on the internet without having to view commercials. I find most TV commercials so annoying that it drives me away. I don’t know if the ads are getting worse, or if it’s that my tolerance for dumb ads is dropping.
John E_o says:

January 30, 2013 at 9:44 pm

Watch Fox News?

I’d sooner pick up the latest Reader’s Digest.
Benjamin P. Glaser says:

January 30, 2013 at 10:05 pm

Male and 32.

I have 4 kids under 6 years old. My wife and I have zero time to watch TV so we dumped Directv this December. Though even when we did have TV, the only “news” I watched regularly was “Special Report w/ Brett Baier” which I always found well done and perfectly executed, especially the “All-Star Panel”.

Now I get my news almost exclusively via Twitter and my RSS Feed.
Noah172 says:

January 30, 2013 at 10:24 pm

If you want to even begin to understand the middle east, you have to be reading the Jewish blogosphere from far left to far right.

Or, you could read the NYT and watch FOX.

I suppose Muslim commentary on the Middle East must be, as the Jews say, chopped liver. European or Middle East Christian commentary must be dreck.
CBlack says:

January 30, 2013 at 10:41 pm

All news outlets have the same agenda:

To grow government.

Else they’d have nothing to harp about.
Linda says:

January 30, 2013 at 10:46 pm

I have occasionally watched rating for FOX, MSNBC, and CNN for several years. The majority of prime time shows are a combination of news and opinion, some more factual than others. The January 2013 ratings are not an exception, it is a change that has gradually been building for several years.

A few years ago, MSNBC was a distant third in ratings. Starting about 2-3 years ago, CNN gradually became the distant third. A week or month can vary – a longer period of time is needed for a more accurate comparison

During the past couple years, specific MSNBC shows have won over specific FOX shows. Several nights in 2012, MSNBC beat FOX in total number of viewers.

In 2011, Rachel Maddow started winning over Hannity. In 2012, she has been consistently beating Hannity (same hour) and a few times she beat O’Reilly for total viewers. Although many conservatives love to hate liberal Maddow, she has a far more in-depth and factual show than anything I have seen on FOX or CNN.

2012 Ratings: FOX To Mark 11 Years At Number One, MSNBC To End Year With Most Growth In Cable News

“MSNBC has the most growth of any cable news channel, and will see double-digit improvements in just about every ratings category and time period. “The Rachel Maddow Show” will end the year as the most-watched cable news program not on Fox, placing 12th overall in total viewers, and eighth in the demo.”

http://tinyurl.com/bzxaaec

9/19/2012
“Monday, between 8 and 11 p.m., MSNBC averaged 471,000 viewers 25-54 over FNC’s 469,000. On Tuesday, it grew its margin of victory by almost 50,000, pulling in 575,000 adults 25-54 over FNC’s 526,000.

The big winner, however, is Rachel Maddow. Airing the hour after perennial winner Bill O’Reilly’s publicized appearance from Jon Stewart, MSNBC’s Maddow managed to best him in the demo. The Rachel Maddow Show (9 p.m.) topped The O’Reilly Factor (8 p.m.) with 703,000 viewers 25-54 over 682,000.. ”

http://tinyurl.com/ac5pscf

I recommend that the liberal bashers watch several Rachel Maddow shows in an attempt to better understand differing opinions. She is the first openly gay American to win an international Rhodes scholarship. She earned a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in politics from Oxford University.

In May 2012, Maddow released a best seller book: “Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power.” About America’s drift into a state of perpetual war, Vietnam War to Afghanistan; executive authority (including Obama); and the gradual outsourcing of our war-making capabilities to private companies.

In 2010, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was named a Walter Cronkite Faith & Freedom Award winner by The Interfaith Alliance (concerned religious freedom.) Previous Cronkite honorees include Tom Brokaw, Larry King, and the late Peter Jennings. The Walter Cronkite Faith & Freedom Award, established by Interfaith Alliance in 1998, recognizes individuals who courageously promote democratic values, defend religious freedom and reinvigorate informed civic participation. The award recognizes individuals whose actions have embodied the values of civility, tolerance, diversity and cooperation in the advancement of public dialogue and public policy on traditionally controversial and divisive issues.

Maddow is very respectful to the people on her show that differ in opinion.
Sean Scallon says:

January 30, 2013 at 11:17 pm

As someone who grew up as CNN grew up in the 1980s, what I remember is – a simple news stations (with sports and business coverage and political shows as well). Then other cable channels tried to picks off parts of the coverage to appeal to niche audiences and eventually the niche overwhelmed the whole. There’s no point in watching them, because they devote more time telling what you should think than just giving you basic news information.
Charles Cosimano says:

January 30, 2013 at 11:21 pm

TV news has always been a joke from the time of St. Walter Chronkite getting the party line from the NYT, snapping a quick salute and marching onto the set to give the message from on high to the great unwashed.

I have not watched any of it in years and I do not miss it.
Matt In the Midwest says:

January 30, 2013 at 11:53 pm

I’d say you’re probably right about FOX News’s painting themselves into a demographic corner, Mr. Dreher. The WWII “Greatest Generation” and the earlier half of the “Baby Boomers” have their virtues and flaws like any other generation, but their worst flaw is that when they do not want to hear a point of view they disagree with, they have no problem with “running you out of town on a rail” (speaking metaphorically).

Just look at the treatment Judge Andrew Napolitano received when his show “Freedom Watch” challenged the junior-high level civics and history class notions most of the older generation operates on. Even though Napolitano is still employed by FOX, you rarely if ever see him on the “prime time” shows, when he was one of the few commentators who could successfully go round-for-round with Bill O’Reilly, who has never been more than a Ted Baxter loved by socially conservative leaning types than an actual social conservative.

It also didn’t help matters much that “Freedom Watch” was on the FOX Business network, a channel usually only available as part of the highest-possible cable packages, which the younger demographic doesn’t subscribe to very often.

I suppose that NewsCorp is simply following profitable business practices, but the question that they should be asking is:

How much longer can our current business and editorial model last?
Fran Macadam says:

January 31, 2013 at 1:28 am

TV news is nonsense.
phelps says:

January 31, 2013 at 6:59 am

I feel there are relative view cable news watchers in the younger age bracket. Most of the younger people I work with all get their news on their telephones, or Ipods.

I get my news from the internet. Watching the cable news is not entertaining or informative. CNN and MSNBC are just liberal mouthpieces. CNN does provide better overseas coverage than either Fox or MSNBC. Fox is just a conversative mouthpiece and they seem to want everyone they disagree with in jail or dead.

A. Napolitano was the only person worth watching on cable news and the tyrants at Fox didn’t like his views since he was freedom loving liberatarian.
Heatherer says:

January 31, 2013 at 8:24 am

It might also be worth asking how cable “news” is doing a la John Stewart and the like. I know it’s not the same genre, but my suspicious is that is where a lot of liberals are going instead of CNN and MSNBC. Given the choice, I know where I would spend my time.
Heatherer says:

January 31, 2013 at 8:25 am

*suspicions* that is
JohnC says:

January 31, 2013 at 8:51 am

Sheppard Smith was in the same fraternity as my brothers at Ole Miss. They say he is the same today as he was back then. Nice guy, always cracking jokes, smart. I don’t watch news at this time of day because I am at the gym, the pool, riding my bike, hiking or out paddling my kayak.
Dee says:

January 31, 2013 at 7:57 pm

Fox News was the only cable news channel I watched up until about 3pm on Election Day. I haven’t watched since because I was heartbroken over the election. I have nothing against the network or its employees, but I just can’t go back to being that person who watched them or listened to talk radio all day to get information or opinions that, in the end, didn’t change anything. I look briefly at news online to stay informed, but I’m pretty happy watching old movies, listening to upbeat music or reading good books instead of being in a constant state of anxiety over news overload.
Hansen says:

February 1, 2013 at 9:14 am

I watch Fox News, (though I notice they are shifting leftward), and and I am much better informed than my friends who only watch CBS. One evening at a dinner party a year or two ago, the conversation was on workplace and school violence. I made mention of the fact that the Ft. Hood shooter was a Muslim. The CBS/only viewers at the table told me I was crazy. By the way, the two who were most vocal against me have never voted anything but the Democratic ticket.
lehnne says:

February 1, 2013 at 12:19 pm

It is interesting that a populace which historical terms, as well in many other, are astounding illiterate think where they get their news makes some sort of difference. You can tell the ignorant anything. For those interested there are subject matter experts or educated opinion all over the internet if one cares enough to to do research into their credibility. With apologies to Marx the media is an opiate for the masses
schmenz says:

February 1, 2013 at 2:22 pm

When they’re not cheerleading for unjust, aggressive wars against people who have done us no harm, FOX is on their “entertainment” side spewing out the most revolting sewage imaginable.

Please God they, and all that are like them, will go away.
AnotherBeliever says:

February 1, 2013 at 11:06 pm

We switch back and forth between Fox and CNN at work. Fox is more popular, but most of us aren’t true believers either way. Cable news in general is obnoxious. Fox gets on my nerves more than CNN. You can have a coherent defensible conservative worldview. But I don’t see that on Fox TV. I just have to grit my teeth and try to change the subject when the true Fox-ers come around with a parroted diatribe. Oh, and we keep Fox on mute generally because none of us, not even the true Fox believers can STAND that Rosland Capital Gold commercial anymore! I think that alone may account for any loss in Fox’s ratings recently.
Peterk says:

February 11, 2013 at 7:20 am

need to look at the other cable news channels to see if they gained or lost. looking at FNC in isolation doesn’t tell you much.
when i can i only watch 3 FNC programs, Cavuto, The Five and Brett Baier. occasionally Shepherd Smith’s show that follows baier.

like you I get the majority of my news from online sources where one can find more depth to the stories.

I do have to chuckle when I read comments by folks like Bagby’s. “I am 30 and have never owned a television. Fox was recently the standard fare at work until one of the employees began fantasizing aloud about emptying a clip into the President.”
may not have owned a tv but how much tv has Bagby watched? what channels? did Bagby get upset when liberals would make similar comments about Bush?

oh well each to his own
Peterk says:

February 11, 2013 at 7:21 am

wow! Schmenz have you ever watched the vile spewed forth on MSNBC/CNBC et al?