Fox News Sees No Post-Election Slump

Conventional wisdom would suggest that cable news ratings were ripe for a precipitous fall once the cuticle-gnawing tension of the election finally abated on Nov. 4 at around 11 p.m. EST.

And yet, in the first full week after voters selected Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, Fox News Channel still delivered much larger nightly audiences than usual.

Driven largely by its 8 p.m. program The O'Reilly Factor, Fox News retained the greatest share among the three cable news nets in the week ended Nov. 16, averaging 2.49 million total viewers in prime, a drop of 30 percent versus the prior week's 3.54 million viewers. More tellingly, Fox News delivered a nightly audience that was 40 percent larger than what it managed in the year-ago period (1.49 million viewers).

FNC also averaged 580,000 viewers in its core demo, marking a 68 percent increase in delivery of adults 25-54 versus the week ended Nov. 18, 2007.

All told, FNC last week finished third among ad-supported cable nets, trailing only ESPN (3.43 million viewers) and USA Network (2.61 million).

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[Eric8869]

The right wing "Sheeple" just line right back up to hear the same right wing spin as usual.

They don't care about facts, truth or integrity. Just please vomit my own beliefs and predjudices back to me.

After they have already been told what their opinions are from right wing radio - they get home to watch it again pretending to be news on fox.

It's sad and pathetic.

[jrlaco]

Why do you guys always, always use the word "sad" when talking about anything conservative? Palin is sad, Bush is sad, Fox is sad. Everything and everyone is sad. You guys need to cheer up, or at least learn the meaning of the word sad.

By the way...watch MSNBC, read these posts, or Moveon's, or Kos...then come back and tell me again about how all conservatives are lemmings...appreciate it. There's more diversity of opinion at Bushwood Country Club than there is on those sites.

[daddysboy]

Ignorance IS sad, AND pathetic.

[apeman637]

I surely thought they would go out of business but anything good worth having is worth waiting for. Had to wait 8 years for the nightmares to end people will come around eventually they're gonna get tired of taunting fox and quit watching these news posers report on bullsh@# and tune out. It will get old watching them sqirm and the right thing to do will be to let them suffer in silence. Then ratings will fall and you can imagine how quickly these diehard wingnuts will threw each other under the bus to get out fast while they can. Can you say mutiny? anyone.

[raythewatchman]

I never could stomach watching the bias of the Fox News broadcasts, and used to watch very little. Now that my man Obama has won, I enjoy watching them complain about the results and wring their hands over being such victims. I just watch and smile. Maybe others are like this, too, and that is what has maintained their ratings.
For more smiles, look at over 70 front pages from around the world the morning after the victory, here: http://frontpages.homestead.com/index.html.

[MOregon]

It is human nature that finds talking about what a person is against more satisfying. Divine nature wires us to let love be our motivation. What are we in love with this day? Makes FOX obsolete to me.

[beartrack]

Fox's ratings won't change much because they have a devoted audience of fools who tune in to get their little empty heads refilled with the Fox version of facts. They will always be with Fox, and let them be.

[donorman]

And you can say the same thing about the people who watch other news sources. Geez.

[daddysboy]

You can SAY the same thing, but it wouldn't be true would it?

[bygollymissmolly]

They may be up in total number of people watching, but both Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are consistently beating Fox in the coveted 25-55 category of viewers. And if it was a level playing field, i.e. cable companies had MSNBC in their basic lineup along with Fox, I believe MSNBC would beat them in all categories.

What is Fox going to do when their fan base (mostly over 65) start to die off. I doubt there will be young viewers to replace them.

[bygollymissmolly]

Comparing Fox to MSNBC is comparing apples to oranges. All the major cable outlets have put MSNBC in their premium category (meaning it costs more money to get MSNBC) and have Fox in their regular lineup. When it is a level playing field between Fox and MSNBC, then and only then can they be compared for the number of viewers they have. Many people would love to watch MSNBC, but it is not available to them and they can't afford the premium rates.

[Nepe]

Not everywhere, Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN Headline News are on expanded cable services for Grande Communications.

[jrlaco]

Comcast too...where exactly does it cost more to get MSNBC?

[bayside]

Of course fox is still in number 1 slot. Until Obama takes charge and tells govt. and military they dont have to watch fox news to keep their ratings up, this will continue, but times will be a changing..

[daddysboy]

fox news is to television what hate-talk was to a.m. radio. The reason their ratings haven't gone down is because their point of view represents the remaining television viewers. These are the viewers that haven't said NO to the 95% barrage of TERRIBLE, mostly unscripted garbage being touted as television entertainment these days. These are also the viewers that are team cheerleaders that feel like they are supporting their team by keeping the TV on that channel. The rest of us only record a couple of items and watch some news when we want instant information and are feeling too lazy to read it online and could care less about supporting a point of view through TV viewing. These ratings are right in line with that. Why do you think DVD sales have skyrocketed and continue to climb and now include almost every television show ever aired? It's because people buy their favorite shows , or download them for iTunes and call it a day. Who wants to watch anything with commercial interruptions these days when you don't have to. Live television represents about 2% of what I watch and I watch allot of TV.

[LemonMeringue]

They will rise to the occasion and hire even more bimbos and report even more tabloid fluff. More titillating talk from the bimbos, too.

Fox will go out of fashion. Smart people are coming to the White House. A smart woman is going to be First Lady. Real family values are here. Real feminism is here. It is going to be out of style to be a bimbo, very shortly. Lying is going out of style too.

I only hope President Obama freezes them out if they don't reverse course 180 degrees. There is no reason to consider them a news organization.

[NonLeftist]

Just make sure the Feminists keep their bras on this time will ya? Yuck!

[ProfessorDuh]

Of course Fox News has still "got it." What's they've got is fas cist propaganda, and people who are desperate for that are even more desperate than usual.

[yearlin]

sometimes people need a break from the nbc obama adoration fest.

[LemonMeringue]

Yeah, so I personally go find the cheapest, most mind-numbing, sexist, racist, empty pack of lies on television and sit in front of that.

Because there are so few channels these days, and so few books and newspapers, and no internet.

The Christian Science Monitor is the most unbiased newspaper on the planet. Not on television though, and as of recently not on paper either - only on the internet, and there's the rub. Most people don't read.

[daddysboy]

Literacy was 100% in America at one time. It is now in the high nineties and going down.

[bygollymissmolly]

We feel for you knowing that it really hurts to be on the losing team. But we also hope you will get help learning to deal with your disappointment, otherwise the next 8 years will be really hard on you.

[eden4barack08]

Like everything else at "Fixed" News, the numbers also are.

[bygollymissmolly]

Agreed. It isn't a level playing field. When it is, then they can brag.

[Nepe]

It's not like Hannity and O'Reilly have the only shows on the network. I like watching Neil Cavuto, Shepard Smith, and Brit Hume. On CNN, I watch Anderson Cooper. As far as I can tell, they report on the same topics any other station reports. They have both Republican and Democrat points of view represented if they are debating an issue. I don't really see the problem.

Like I said in a previous post, if you don't like their show, don't watch it. If they are reporting false information then of course something should be said. I don't think your going to change the Fox viewers' minds. As far as the liberal demographic spread around the other stations so what? In talk radio, the conservative demographic is spread around other stations as well.

[bbshot]

I don't like any of the programming on Fox News. However, if their news is inaccurate, slanted, or outright wrong, how am I supposed to respond if I take your advice and don't watch the network? You don't have to answer. I usually hit News Hounds to find out what's going on over at Fox. News Hounds' motto is "we watch Fox, so you don't have to". And now that I've finally subbed to Huffington Post, I'll watch the video clips that are posted here. YouTube is another place to get clips. Both have the advantage of letting me see some concrete (read annotated and/or citationed) evidence of the worst that Fox has to offer without me having to actually watch Fox.

[Nepe]

You wouldn't have to report it because you don't watch the program. If you happen to be watching Fox news and they are reporting something that is inaccurate then yes report it. However, it's funny that people are just watching clips. Clips are often skewed, where a piece is taken out of context. Is that not wrong as well?

[daddysboy]

It takes less than 30 seconds to demonstrate a massive bias on any topic and there are allot of 30 second spots in one day.

[Myshkin57]

It's not the topics that differ all the time, but the delivery.

[IAB]

And how will the Fox news haters spin this?

My take is that people were interested in seeing how Bill O. and company would react to defeat...
All in all, I thought most of Fox crowd managed to take it in relative stride...

[beenn15]

actually... I watch FoxNews when I'm bored... they always put a smile on my face...

[HawkeyeD]

Yes, when I'm feeling a need for motivation....