Fox News beats all rivals (combined)

[Tommy Duncan]

story.news.yahoo.com/news...all_rivals (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1951&ncid=2019&e=1&u=/variety/20040928/va_tv_ne/fox_news_beats_all_rivals)

Fox News beats all rivals

Tue Sep 28, 6:23 PM ET Television - Variety

Pamela McClintock, STAFF
Variety

NEW YORK -- For the first time in its history, Fox News Channel beat the combined competition in primetime during the third quarter of 2004, with major headlines of the summer including the national political conventions and a brutal string of hurricanes.


According to Nielsen Media Research, Fox News averaged 1.8 million viewers, while CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and Headline News averaged a combined total of 1.7 million. The quarter ended Sunday.


CNN came in a distant second, averaging 882,000 viewers, while MSNBC drew 421,000. Headline News averaged 226,000 in primetime, and CNBC attracted a paltry 133,000.


Most of the cable news nets were up significantly vs. Q3 2003 thanks to a busy news cycle. The one exception was CNBC, which was down 13%.


Buoyed by the Olympics and convention coverage, MSNBC saw the most growth in its primetime aud, up a hefty 55%. Fox News came in second in terms of growth, up 39%. CNN was up 19% and Headline News 17%.


In the key news demo, Fox News averaged 405,000 viewers in 25-54, a 44% improvement on the same period in 2003. CNN averaged 195,000 viewers in the demo, up 17%. At 115,000, MSNBC was up 34%.


Headline News averaged 75,000 viewers in the demo, up only 6% from the same frame last year. CNBC improved its performance in the demo, averaging 53,000 viewers, a 36% jump.


Fox News' third-quarter performance further solidified its dominance in the field of cable news, as well as its increasing strength against even the broadcast nets. During the Republican National Convention in late August, Fox News won out over ABC News, CBS News and NBC News, also a first for a cable news net.


Earlier this week, Bill O'Reilly's interview with President Bush on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" drew a whopping 4.6 million viewers.


Fox News had nine of the 10 top programs during the third quarter, with O'Reilly remaining at No. 1, averaging 2.4 million viewers. The one exception was CNN's "Larry King Live," which was No. 6, averaging 1.3 million viewers.

[SpursWoman]

O'Reilly is really the only *news* show I watch. I tend to think he leans to the right, although he swears to be an independent.

He's pretty ruthless with everyone, though. I think it's funny.


I watch Hannity & Colmes sometimes.....Colmes seemed to be a whiny little bitch when the show first started, but he holds his own a lot better now, IMO. He did really well (even though I didn't agree with some of it :wink ) in the O'Reilly/Bush interview commentary.


:)

[1369]

Hey, I'll admit it, I watch Fox...

http://www.1067wjfk.com/ups/gallery_dm/lauriedhue.jpg

http://www.cameroncole.net/gallery/News_Babes/Fox_News/Patti_Ann_Brown/200409020006.jpg

http://www.cameroncole.net/gallery/News_Babes/Fox_News/Jennifer_Eccleston/200307250001.jpg

http://www.cameroncole.net/gallery/News_Babes/Fox_News/Linda_Vester/200409020034.jpg

[Hook Dem]

Good job Fox !!!!! You're in tune with America.:wink

[Joe Chalupa]

They aren't called FOXNews for their "fair and balanced" reporting. :p

Fair and balanced babes? You bet!!

[Nbadan]

The Rating Mirage


Reporting on the ratings rivalry between the Fox News Channel (FNC) and CNN is often misleading--and almost always over-hyped.

"Fox Tops CNN as Choice for Cable News," declared one typical headline (Chicago Tribune, 3/24/03). "Fox News Channel Continues to Crush CNN," reported Knight Ridder (Dallas Morning News, 2/3/04) in a column comparing the rivalry to a party primary: "Fox News Channel is winning the Nielsen caucuses." Last summer (8/17/03), the New York Times Magazine declared, looking back at the period of the Iraq invasion, "Fox was--and still is--trouncing CNN in the ratings."

After exposure to countless similar stories published since January 2002, when Fox was reported to have surpassed CNN in the Nielsen ratings, one might naturally conclude that Fox has more viewers than CNN.

But it's not true. On any given day, more people typically tune to CNN than to Fox.

So what are the media reports talking about? With few exceptions, stories about the media business report a single number for ratings (often expressed two different ways--as "points" or "share"). This number is often presented as if it were the result of a popularity contest or a democratic vote. But it is actually the average number of viewers watching a station or a show in a typical minute, based on Nielsen Media Research's monitoring of thousands of households.

The average is arrived at by counting viewers every minute. Heavy viewers--those who tune in to a station and linger there--have a greater impact, as they can be counted multiple times as they watch throughout the day.

When an outlet reports that CNN is trailing Fox, they are almost invariably using this average tally, which Fox has been winning for the past two years. For the year 2003, Nielsen's average daily ratings show Fox beating CNN 1.02 million viewers to 665,000.

But there is another important number collected by Nielsen (though only made available to the firm's clients) that tells another story. This is the "cume," the cumulative total number of viewers who watch a channel for at least six minutes during a given day. Unlike the average ratings number the media usually report, this number gives the same weight to the light viewer, who tunes in for a brief time, as it does to the heavy viewer.

How can CNN have more total viewers when Fox has such a commanding lead in average viewers? Conventional industry wisdom is that CNN viewers tune in briefly to catch up on news and headlines, while Fox viewers watch longer for the opinion and personality-driven programming. Because the smaller total number of Fox viewers are watching more hours, they show up in the ratings as a higher average number of viewers.

CNN regularly claims a cume about 20 percent higher than Fox's (Deseret Morning News, 1/12/04). For instance, in April 2003, during the height of the fighting in Iraq, CNN's cume was significantly higher than Fox's: 105 million viewers tuned into CNN compared to 86 million for Fox (Cablefax, 4/30/03). But in the same period, the ratings reported by most media outlets had Fox in the lead, with an average of 3.5 million viewers to CNN's 2.2 million.

Even among Fox's core audience of conservatives, CNN has an edge in total viewership. A study by the ad agency Carat USA (Hollywood Reporter, 8/13/03) found that 37 percent of viewers calling themselves "very conservative" watch CNN in the course of a week, while only 32 percent tune to Fox.

Fair.org (http://www.fair.org/extra/0404/fox-ratings.html)

[Tommy Duncan]

So Fox News viewers actually watch the programming while CNN "viewers" are changing the channel to Fox News.

[blackbucket]

http://www.geocities.com/foxnewsmisc/kc1.jpg
:makeout

[ducks]

Still kicking ass

[Ef-man]

Still kicking ass

And you are still stupid.

:tu