The report Friday that The Fox News Channel, (“FNC” in acronym argot, or “Faux News” if you aren’t drinking the Kool-Aid), was the 8th highest-rated cable channel of 2006 wasn’t exactly a press-stopper. But for those who don’t follow this stuff, #8 may seem low considering the tankers of ink media types dump into re-cycling Fox’s hype and press releases. (Personally, I’m one of those who thinks of Fox News as far more marketing scheme than news service; a marketing scheme with a client base of one … itself. Face it, all of Fox’s “reporting” is orchestrated to heighten its brand.
Anywho … the basic report merely compared FNC with its cable rivals, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline and MSNBC, all of whom trailed at considerable distance. The cursory report did however note that FNC, home to Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity as if you needed to be told, lost 26% of its audience among 25-54 year-olds over the course of ’06, while CNN lost 17% and CNN Headline 5%. Only MSNBC, (up 7%) and business-news CNBC (up a fat 32%) showed growth, among newsies.
Duly noted in most leads was that O’Reilly’s numbers, while down, were still substantially greater than Keith Olbermann’s. Olbermann, a hero to liberals for his righteous articulation of patriotic anger during the ’06 campaign, is clearly the act driving MSNBC’s numbers. He was the cable media story of the fall. (Several reports noted that Olbermann, a man blessed/cursed with a prodigious ego — right down to the Murrow-like quarter-profile he gives his Murrow-like “Special Comments” — is clearly positioning himself for something better than a life at the country’s 36th-highest rated cable news network.)
Don’t hold your breath though waiting for, say, CBS to acknowledge its Katie Couric mistake and dare something as unhinged and open to crackpot bombardment as dropping an unabashed truth-speaker to power like Olbermann on to its anchor desk. This country is far closer to a president with the middle name of “Hussein” than a liberal sensibility with an off-beat sense of humor fronting a network news division.
Also, while I’m thinking of it, let the record show that MSNBC’s Olbermann-Chris Matthews election night duet was TV’s most engaging analysis act, in no small part because of the fun of the tension of two cocks of the walk in full plumage display barely contained by the same puny camera frame.
But what is rarely referenced in these cable network reporting stories is what Americans are really spending their time watching. I mean, O’Reilly scored, on average, an audience of 2.3 million. Big whoop. (Even less big really, when you consider the average age of your cable news watcher is older than the average newspaper reader, practically an IV drip crowd, and that Fox’s viewers are the oldest — and male-est — of the bunch.)
Basically, the real cable story is, “screw news”, Iraq, off-year elections and Lou Dobbs howling about porous borders withstanding. The USA Network, with all entertainment, had double Fox News’ primetime average, ditto TNT, (“The Closer” did great business for them), and, as usual, ESPN, this year with “Monday Night Football” pulled down the bulk of the weekly “most watched program” bragging rights. (Worth noting is that the premium package Disney Channel is #2 in the US).
I could prattle on, but you get the idea. A reminder, really. Most of the country’s cable watchers remain pretty damned resistant to the cable news shtick. Too bad, perhaps. But maybe it is an example of “wisdom of crowds” and we are generally refusing to engage with all shtick, all the time.
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