Heath care debate helps Fox News boost its already-strong ratings
Fox News Channel was “already on pace for its best ratings year even before the health care debate sent viewership jumping during a traditionally slow month for news,” Associated Press Television Writer David Bauder says today.
Fox’s viewership is up 11 percent over last year, according to Nielsen Media Research. CNN and MSNBC, which benefited from interest in the campaign last year, are down. Bill O’Reilly, who already had cable news’ most popular show, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity lead the way.The ratings expose as naive anyone who believed that the dawn of a Democratic government in Washington would hurt Fox.
“Fox is much more firmly established than it has ever been,” said Eric Burns, former host of Fox’s “News Watch” media criticism show. “It has been in existence for 13 years. It knows its base. And it knows its base is bigger than CNN or MSNBC.”
Since Fox is already the network of choice for conservatives, the ratings indicate it must be drawing in more moderates and even liberals, said Bernard Goldberg, best-selling author of “A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (and Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media” and other books that criticize liberal media bias. The poor economy and the administration’s ambitious agenda have made people anxious and searching for a media outlet that understands them, he said.
Roughly three times as many Republicans said in a June survey that they regularly get news from Fox, as opposed to CNN or MSNBC, reported the Pew Research Center. The three networks had about the same number of Independent followers, and Fox had more Democratic followers than CNN and MSNBC had GOP fans.
Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, a group that is busing activists across the country to hold demonstrations against health care reform, said other news organizations seem more interested in who is helping to organize protests. Fox doesn’t ignore the protesters’ concerns, he said.
Steve Parker is the deputy managing editor for news, and oversees the Post-Dispatch's front page. STLtoday's online news editors are on his newsroom team. Parker has been at the paper since September 1980. 
Steve, one would think this story would be a wake-up call for the PD, but alas we all know nothing will ever change. Kevin Horrigan will continue to write hateful commentaries calling conservatives racists because they oppose bailouts and socialize medicine.
Perhaps this will inspire the PD to have an Op-Ed blog to counter the misleading editorials on the Editorial Page.
Fox news has news you won’t hear anywhere else. I wonder why that is?
If you want the facts, pro or con, got to Fox. If you want democratic talking points, got to NBC, CBS, ABC, CNBC, CNN or the local stations.
Mr. TIME,
Please tell me you forgot the blue font?
Yours in effective sarcasm,
JPinSTL
JP
No sarcasm. Just look at the numbers. They wipe out all the others combined.
When you see such foolishness as what has been continuously spewed on Fox Network even before anyone else knew anything about HR 3200, way ahead of the Democrats who should have had their proactive and defense much better planned to counter these deceptions. It should not have been a surprise knowing how these schemers operate.
As we witnessed with the Iraq War, the masses of people just isn’t very intelligent or insightful. The masses of people are very vulnerable to the deceptions and schemes of this ilk of operators. They fail for the IRAQ WAR PROPAGANDA and now they are stupidly falling for the healthcare propaganda of those whose only interest are protecting insurance companies. It is so just so frustrating seeing people being so duped again.
You can only hope that there is a cure for such ignorance but seeing how having the correct information available isn’t even a cure and how easily they follow such lies and false information, it all seems just pathetically hopeless. Not too much ever change with these vulnerable people because they are so easily fooled by those who DO NOT HAVE the best interest of the people at heart. If some sort of public option isn’t passed, some of these same ones here so against it will be looking at one another like fools wanting someone to do something. Sometimes I think that they should be allowed to just wallow in their blind ignorance.
“…the masses of people just isn’t very intelligent or insightful.”dwalker.
…Not too much ever change with these vulnerable people because they are so easily fooled…
Ditto that! Especially when trying to write intelligibly.
D Walker,
Are you being facetious by posting badly written and hard to follow rants which call others ignorant or are you serious?
Goes to show how little you two above know about what truly measures intelligence, doesn’t it? Like I stated, you will wallow in your ignorance.
dr-debunck and jmas,
Just get use to first drafts being posted by me because that is almost always what I usually post, and, YES, they are usually full of errors, including run on sentences and all kinds of other errors. That’s just the way it is when I write, I was trained to write this way and correct later where I do not take the time to do that here.
Frankly, I am not a good proof reader of my own writings. See, I do know and understamnd my short comings.
dr. debunk and jmas,
Yes, I should have stated aren’t instead of isn’t above and I see many more errors. I do know better.