6 Comments

1. Stephen Hill

   July 13, 2009

   It's Fox News - its like watching a car-crash. This is the news station that thought the California Miss America entrant's opposition to gay marriage was bigger news than the brave Iranians protesting wide-scale vote-rigging

   It's info-tainment for rusted on GOP

   "One interesting thing about how much Fox news and friends are covering these tea parties is that its illustrative how much conservatism has been transformed from a political movement into an entertainment demographic. Political movements, I would think, are defined by a common set of semi-coherent policies and proposals that movement sympathizers hope to see implemented by government. Entertainment demographics are defined by shared tastes or predilections that media companies can target for ratings.

   The GOP has abandoned the business of coming up with and articulating a political platform, opting instead to host and promote counter-cultural parties that seem strange and foreign to the vast majority of their co-nationalists. Then, Fox, Glenn and Rush cover these events relentlessly because its an effective way of getting the attention of a specific demographic and boosting ratings. As for the rest of us, when we think of conservatives we no longer think fiscal responsibility or national security; rather, we see one more alternative lifestyle choice among many - and a very odd one at that."

   http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/04/conservatism_as_entertainment.php

   Fox I believe only gets about a couple of million viewers (out of a pool of 50-60m registered Republicans), they are now the tail wagging the dog - but wagging the dog in ways that will further estrange the conservatives from swinging independent voters.

2. Chris Lloyd

   July 13, 2009

   I dont have the whole context of this clip. It sounds bizarre, not to mention his referring to other ethnicities as other "species". But I think he is saying that mixed ethnic marriages are a good thing that the study that establishes a link between marriage and risk of dementia does not apply to the US. Its nonsense anyway but I did get a different message from a second listening.

3. Patrick

   July 13, 2009

   Fox News I believe only gets about a couple of million viewers; this is only about as much as CNN, ABC and NBC combined. (presumably they are news for the rusted-on Dems then?)

   Fox, of course, gets ten million odd for its hit shows but that is not relevant here.

4. Stephen Hill

   July 14, 2009

   Don't know where you got those figures (maybe it was The Simpsons or something other in the entertainment division, I remember only a month ago when Fox was bragging about O'Reilly hitting 3million viewers - I can't see them tripling in a couple of weeks. Also while Fox wins over CNN on specific programs (in overall audience I believe CNN is still ahead), and in comparison with free-to-air NBC, ABC, CBS news, it's not even a contest.

   It's interesting that in the last year another cable network MSNBC, which I haven't seem but heard is like the left-wing equivalent of Fox News is taking viewers away from the centrist CNN, to the extent I think it is now second in cable news. Personally, if this is true (and I am inferring this from a very limited amount of information about NBC's cable news) it is kind of sad considering how much CNN invests in foreign bureaus, specialist reporting. I guess what I am saying is I think all this "I reckon" opinion journalism in inverted commas, whether it is left or right is in the long term quite peripheral to what is actually going on in the world - in constrast to the old fashioned discipline of investigative reporting, that of collecting detailed facts and publishing in an objective format.

   I guess on that level the BBC should be given the status as the eighth wonder of the world, as the range of programs they are able to broadcast is impressive (Hardtalk, Reporters, Asian Report, Doha Debates), although CNN has some good programs like this e.g. Fareed Zakaria GPS, State of the Union, Correspondants Report.

5. Patrick

   July 15, 2009

   Well this is a bit of a slog, I was just parroting some reporting I had seen!

   The first problem is that ratings are split out bewteen cable and broadcast. I am not even that sure which networks are which (I don't have a TV, and even if I did I would only watch Setanta, so how should I know?). The second is the difference between News (ie FXN including O'Reilly) and TV )ie FOX).

   So primetime broadcast has CBS followed by NBC, Fox and Univision in that order. For what that is worth.

   Primetime cable is probably what we are most interested in, and that shows total FXN dominance:

   Network (000s)
   USA 3,208
   DSNY 2,976
   TNT 2,310
   FOXN 2,105
   FAM 1,817
   SYFY 1,699
   FX 1,613
   NAN 1,539
   TBSC 1,459
   DISC 1,254
   CNN 1,251
   HIST 1,232
   ESPN 1,210
   FOOD 1,180
   HGTV 1,134
   A&E 1,119
   LIFE 1,116
   TLC 1,102
   TOON 1,066
   TRU 993

   I wonder if all that html works?

   Anway I certainly agree that the BBC is pretty remarkable - it is a bit of a challenge for libertarian-ish people, and what's more it runs Top Gear. In fact it is almost as remarkable as your comments about CNN. Aren't they the network that invested in relationships with, only as far as we know, Saddam Hussein? Relationships that worked along the lines of: you let us report what you want us to report?

6. Patrick

   July 15, 2009

   Well that was a waste of good html :(