Fox News, CNN Diverge

For years, CNN and Fox News were the top two names in cable news. But four stories this week so far illustrate the different paths the two networks have taken since President Obama came into office:

1. CNN Sticks Down The Middle, Finishes 4th 42% Of Weeknights In 2009 (NYT):

Since the beginning of March, CNN has fallen behind both the longtime ratings leader, Fox News Channel, which, as the voice of disaffected conservatives, again has an imposing lead, and the upstart MSNBC, which has tried to mirror Fox's success by steering to the left. CNN has even dipped behind its sister network HLN (formerly Headline News) on many occasions. Since the beginning of 2009, CNN has finished fourth in prime time among the cable news networks on 35 out of 84 weeknights.

2. Study: President Obama receives most negative coverage from Fox News (CMPA):

The three networks have evaluated Mr. Obama very similarly - 57% positive comments on ABC, 58% positive on CBS, and 61% positive on NBC. But he fared far better in New York Times stories, where nearly three out of four evaluative comments (73%) by sources and reporters were favorable. And he fared far worse on Fox News, where only one out of eight such comments (13%) were favorable.

3. Fox News Eyes USA's #1 Cable Network Crown (MediaWeek):

Even after taking the silver among ad-supported cable in the first quarter of 2009, averaging 2.26 million total viewers to USA Network's record delivery of 3.26 million, the channel won't rest until it has reached the summit. In short, FNC wants to win the prime-time ratings crown outright, and as the upfront season approaches, its ad sales team is trumpeting that message to media buyers.

4. CNN Finishes 4th in Prime Demo for April — Loses To Little Sister HLN (TVNewser):

CNN has finished the month of April in fourth place among the four cable news networks in the ad-friendly A25-54 demo in prime time. According to Nielsen Media Research, CNN finished the month with an average of 265,000 A25-54 viewers (Mon-Fri, 8pm-11pmET). Sister network HLN moved into third place with 274,000 A25-54 viewers on the continued success of Nancy Grace.

Synthesis: CNN is trying to uphold its news brand — and it's growing (up 25% over April 2008 — but the other networks have all the momentum (for now, at least — we'll see how things go when CNN pulls out all the stops and treat President Obama's 100th Day like Election Night, as big news nights have been CNN's specialty). Fox News is appealing to its base — only 13% of comments on the network are favorable to Obama — and it's not only winning the cable news race by a mile, it's now gunning for cable's top spot (presumably the fact that it's currently held by NBC Universal's USA only makes it that much more fun for Fox News).

Comments

[Dace]

05:22 PM on 04/29/2009

This is a tiny demographic to start with and also none of the faux news crowd can read so they need to watch the TV and listen to the fat lying drug addicted radio lord. We are talking about marginalized zealots. They have been comparing size since grade school in gym class.

[sloppyJoe]

12:35 PM on 04/29/2009

All things in perspective: 300million Americans. 28 mil watching American Idol. 2.3 watching fox news. 2.6 watching sponge bob. Get on the neilson ratings and see where it falls in the grand scheme of things and it isn't so worrisome.

[4real]

11:55 AM on 04/29/2009

Cnn in not "down the middle". It's like saying Faux is "fair and balanced". All three "news" channels are annoying.

[samilli3]

11:49 AM on 04/29/2009

All the sane people are no longer watching TV....all the crazies and ignorant are watching
Fox..all three million of them. Despite their effort, the G.O.P is still losing ground so it works for me

[entrenchedhoosier]

10:59 AM on 04/29/2009

I dumped my satellite TV subscription service 5 months ago, as a result of employment loss.
This was one of the actions that I did, to reduce expenditures.
I still get access to my Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow broadcasts, at the MSNBC TV website.
MSNBC, Fox News and CNN all have video rebroadcasts through web streaming, at their respective websites.
All that is required is a broadband ISP and the Adobe Flash plugin added to the browser.
For slower broadband, pausing the video is required for the buffering of the content.
I am curious as to how the participants of HuffPo would grade the web page layouts.
Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down.

The links to the 3 broadcasts occurring at 8:00 PM, are as follows:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/campbell.brown/
http://www.foxnews.com/oreilly/index.html

[Skott1]

09:19 AM on 04/29/2009

The article is meaningless because it starts with a untrue premise. Fox is not a news network. Not one single thinking person would watch this channel and confuse it with news.

[Joseph Upton]

06:48 AM on 04/29/2009

Who cares what the polls say? Obama is imposing even MORE big government on america, bankrupting the nation. The only thing that REALLY matters is that Obama is WRONG.

[deaner1971]

07:25 AM on 04/29/2009

Yes, clearly the current problems in our country started only 100 days ago and up until then we had no economic issues or erosion of civil liberties and all was wonderful.

And you are aware that polls are people each voting their opinion...you know kind of like the way elections work. Thus, when Bush's approval was at 23%, it meant that 23% of the American people thought, "This guy is making my life better". When Obama has an approval arting of 57% it means that there are people out there who didn't even vote for him (won with 53%) but now like the job he is doing.

That means something. It isn't irrelevant, it is important. The way people feel their government does or doesn't care about them matters.

[bedfordny]

09:25 AM on 04/29/2009

Excellent points!

[bygollymissmolly]

12:48 PM on 04/29/2009

Well cupcake, you certainly are entitled to your opinions. Unfortunately for you and your party a very large majority of Americans disagree with you.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_042609.html

[DRaymond]

11:40 PM on 04/28/2009

It used to be that News was actually about solid journalism.

I remember many years ago a comic where a man in front of a TV set was unhappy watching the football game where Tech was beating State so he pushes the button on the remote and beams as the coverage now has State beating Tech.

With there being so many news sources (not simply on TV either) news has become more worldview validation and less about factual journalism. But Fox is flying hightest because not only is their audience more in need of worldview validation but they are also offering something more...anxiety validation. In other words if you feel uneasy about the present or the future, feel that things are out of your control, are fearfull of outside forces, Fox News confirms that not only is your worldview justified but so are your anxieties. There really are secret forces trying to undermine your religion, enslave your children, take away all your possessions and protections and turn America into some scarry foreign place like Sweeden or Mexico. Of course listening to all those things not only validates your anxieties it increases them, making you need to listen to Fox even more!

[Skott1]

09:21 AM on 04/29/2009

DRay - Thanks. That was very insightful. You put your finger right on it.

[Maykat]

11:28 PM on 04/28/2009

"2. Study: President Obama receives most negative coverage from Fox News (CMPA)"

Please restore my faith in mankind and tell me that nobody is surprised by this.

[pfranklin400]

11:03 PM on 04/28/2009

No. The worst ranking polls are the liberal Obama polls. This clown Obama has had one of the worst 100 days in office of any President and he has an approval rate of 60%.

BTW, even with the liberal NBC / NY TImes polls OBama has a lower rating than GW Bush after 100 days.

I would bet we will not hear this on any major news network. Not allowed, must promote Obama even if it means being dishonest.

[KansasWrangler]

11:25 PM on 04/28/2009

Don't know where you are getting info on a NBC/NYT poll showing that. The new CBS/NYT poll as as well as the NBC/WSJ poll show considerably higher marks (68 vs.57) for Obama than Bush for the first 100 days. The extremely unreliable fox poll shows them tied. These polls have all been remarked on by the major networks.

[KYlawyer]

11:41 PM on 04/28/2009

Wrong. Comparing apples to apples, Obama's approval rating according to Gallup is 63%, W's rating at the same point in his presidency was 55% in the Gallup. Even the current Fox news poll rates him at 62%.

Nice try but FAIL. Play again later when you grow a brain.

[bobbyvand]

10:52 PM on 04/28/2009

When you can't tell the difference between a news broadcast and a whitehouse press briefing, you must be watching MSNBC or CNN. Fox News dominates the cable news ratings for a good reason. They don't get all tingly up their legs when their most glorious leader opens his mouth. When you get wood from hearing another man speak , it's hard to be an objective commentator.

[dillydawg]

08:53 AM on 04/29/2009

Silly.

[bygollymissmolly]

12:53 PM on 04/29/2009

No, Fixed News dominates the other cable channels because it is available to many more Americans than MSNBC or CNN. If Fixed News is your only choice for news, then you will probably watch them. Fixed News is in the basic lineup on cable whereas MSNBC and CNN are in the premium lineup, meaning you have to pay more to be able to watch those networks.

If it is ever a level playing field and Fixed News still beats MSNBC and CNN, then and only then can you boast that Fixed News is the best.

Another thing to consider is that MSNBC and CNN pretty much split the viewers who aren't right wing nut jobs. Fixed News has no competition to split viewership with.

[KansasWrangler]

10:51 PM on 04/28/2009

OK, so fox is pulling in 2.26 million viewers, so what are the other 200 million viewers watching? Sorry, these stats mean nothing to me. Nielsen is probably the most worthless ranking system in existence (other than GOP polls) and I cannot understand why anyone would use their information for anything. My cable company knows to absolute who is watching what on their system, and they are putting their ads on those most watched channels. I know fox is not popular in my town.

[abmabardy]

10:32 PM on 04/28/2009

"Study: President Obama receives most negative coverage from Fox News"


Duh.

.

[abmabardy]

10:29 PM on 04/28/2009

Duh.

[tnfit78]

09:47 PM on 04/28/2009

Right now, Sean Hannity is fixated on the Obama "teleprompter".