Tag: Fox News

Turning off Fox: GOP ‘News’ Channel’s Ratings Are Down 21% Overall, 26% in Younger Demo

Jon Ponder

In year-to-year comparisons, the GOP’s Fox channel lost 21 percent of its overall viewership as well as over a quarter of younger viewers versus the same period last year.

A more remote possibility is that millions of Fox viewers — the average of whom is 65 — have simply died off.

According to TV Newser:

[The] network was down -21% in Total Viewers and down -26% in younger viewers compared to Sept. 2009 (Total Day, Mon-Sun)…

“The O’Reilly Factor” was the top program in cable news[*], averaging more than 2.8 million Total Viewers and 680,000 A250-54 demo viewers, but the show was down -12% (Total Viewers) and -21% (demo) compared to Sept. 09. “Hannity,” “Glenn Beck,” “Special Report” and “On the Record” rounded out the top five — but all shows were also down double digits compared to Sept. ’09.

Overall, FNC was the fourth most-watched network on cable, behind entertainment juggernauts USA and TNT, and sports leader ESPN, which has seen a boost from its coverage of “Monday Night Football.”

MSNBC experienced a slight uptick in ratings. The GE-owned channel remains the top rated legitimate news channel.*

[…]

Nearly 300 Fox Advertisers Have Boycotted Glenn Beck’s Show Since He Called the President a Racist

Pensito Editors

296

Number of advertisers who have boycotted Glenn Beck’s show on Fox since Sept. 28, 2009 — the day he accused Pres. Obama of having “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture,” and said, “I’m not saying he doesn’t like white people, I’m saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist.”

The GOP-Fox 2010 Race Baiting Campaign Rolls on: Beck Puts Up Graphic, ‘Coons in Africa’

Jon Ponder

screenshot-beck-coons-in-africa

Over at News Hounds, where they watch Fox so we don’t have to, dear readers — for which I am, and you should be, eternally grateful — they caught one of the subtlest attempts at race baiting on the Republicans’ in-house network this year. During a bizarre peroration by Glenn Beck in which he tried his damnedest to help the campaign of Delaware Christian tea bagger Christine O’Donnell get up out of its defensive crouch, he flashed a header on the screen behind that said “Coons in Africa.”

The headline officially referred to O’Donnell’s opponent, Chris Coons, the Democratic nominee who is a county official in Delaware. But come on.

[…]

TeaPartyTracker Reflects the Crazy Back at Cha

Trish

Proclaiming, “A Watched Tea Party Never Boils,” teapartytracker.org has launched. Rumored to be backed by progressive hero George Soros, the site features instances of tea baggers doing what they do best: taking stands that don’t fit with reality and making weird, disjointed statements that make no sense, or as the site says, “Monitoring racism and other forms of extremism within the Tea Party movement.” Check out this video produced at the recent Million Moron March in Washington.

On Message: GOP-Fox TV

Jon Ponder

GOP-Fox TV After years of speculation, the connection between Fox News and the Republican Party became public on Aug. 17, 2010, with the revelation that Fox’s owner, News Corp, had donated $1 million to the Republican Governor’s Association. This move reverses a position taken four months earlier by News Corps CEO Rupert Murdoch, who, when asked if it was appropriate for Fox News to promote rallies sponsored by Republican operatives doing business as the “tea party,” said, “No, I don’t think we should be supporting the tea party or any party.” Now that the financial relationship between Fox and the Republican Party has been established, the network should no longer be described as a “news channel.” Editors should use “GOP-Fox TV” instead of “Fox News Channel” in all references.

Obligatory Crowd Inflation Numbers Begin After Tea Party Rally

Trish

78,000 — 96,000

— CBS News estimates of crowd size at Mormon Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally in Washington on Aug. 28, based on work commissioned by CBS from AirPhotosLive. The company uses photos taken from tethered balloons shot at the peak of the crowd, which are then broken into 2-D and 3-D grids, and the individuals counted.

Tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands

— Figure quoted by NBC Nightly News

More than 100,000

— ABCNews.com

Crowd Attending Beck Rally Estimated at Over 500,000

— FOX News headline

As low as 300,000 and as big as 650,000

— Glenn Beck on FOX News Sunday

“We’re not going to let anyone get away with saying there were less than a million here today – because we were witnesses.”

— Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)

Recap of Republican Disinformation Points on Manhattan Islamic Center, Courtesy of Florida Governor Candidate

Trish

Disgraced HCA Columbia Healthcare CEO Rick Scott (who was forced to resign rather than face criminal charges in the nation’s largest Medicaid fraud case, resulting in a $1.7 billion fine) sums up all the Republican lies about the Islamic Center in New York in one TV spot, going FOX News one better by tying construction of the facility to health care reform. Why Scott, who is running for governor of Florida — a state which will have little if any say in the issue — would chose this as a campaign platform is unclear.

Most Americans Who Believe Obama is a Muslim Got It from the Media

Trish

6 in 10

— Number of Americans who mistakenly believe Pres. Obama is a Muslim who also report they were told this by the media, with 16 percent (the largest segment) attributing it to television. Another 11 percent say they figured it out themselves from the president’s “behavior and words.”