The latest basic cable ratings have been released, and left-leaning networks like MSNBC and CNN are getting crushed by Fox News.
“Fox News was the only basic cable network to average 1 million viewers, finishing the week of Nov. 8-14 with an average audience of 1.5 million while runner-up ESPN settled for 983,000,” FoxNews.com reported. “Hallmark Chanel, MSNBC and HGTV rounded out the top five, and CNN continued to struggle with a dismal average audience of only 483,000 viewers.”
As for primetime… it wasn’t even close. “During the primetime hours of 8-11 p.m. ET, Fox News averaged 2.4 million viewers while MSNBC averaged 1.2 million.” CNN only got 632,000 nightly primetime viewers, because, as Fox News noted, “the embattled lineup of Anderson Cooper, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon have found it difficult to remain relevant during the President Biden era.”
Fox News delivered 72 of the top 100 cable telecasts, while CNN had none.
Ouch. And it gets worse.
“The advertiser-coveted demographic of adults aged 25-54 indicated that MSNBC also has significant problems. Fox News averaged 245,000 demo viewers to double CNN’s turnout of 107,000,” FoxNews.com explained, while MSNBC averaged only 77,000 demo viewers. “It was the 15th week in a row that Fox News outdrew CNN and MSNBC combined in each weekday hour among the demo.”
With Fox News dominating the ratings, one can’t help but wonder what the left-leaning networks are going to do to get in the same league as Fox. If these networks don’t adapt, they run the risk of going out of business.
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Well, it doesn’t look like they have any interest in changing their ways to win a higher share of basic cable viewers. Nope. Instead of looking inward to see what they can do to be better networks, they are choosing to attack Fox News.
MSNBC Opinion Columnist Dean Obeidallah, for one, is calling for an economic boycott of Fox News.
“If you pay for any basic cable package, you are helping fund everything that Fox News airs, from its misleading information about Covid vaccines […] to its 2020 election conspiracies,” Obeidallah writes. “That’s because every month built into your cable bill is a fee (an average of $2 a month) that goes to Fox News — including the salaries of Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and others.”
Obeidallah whines that “only about 3 million Americans” watch Fox News daily, yet “the nation’s estimated 65 million cable-connected households are forced to fund Fox News, allowing Fox to reap an estimated $1.8 billion in revenue per year in carriage fees.”
It’s time this ends,” Obeidallah declares. “We must demand that cable operators grant us freedom from Fox News.”
Obeidallah acknowledges that similar efforts have been tried in the past and have failed, but he thinks what he’s calling for will work because he wants the public to demand that their cable companies offer packages that don’t include Fox News, “so that those of us who don’t want to support the network are no longer mandated to pay a monthly fee to the company.”
Obeidallah acknowledges that MSNBC and CNN make money the same way Fox News does, but their share of fees is “far lower, since Fox News attracts the largest cable news audience.”
I guess he deserves credit for admitting that Fox News is killing his network. But what he doesn’t get is that this effort, like all others, will fail. The reason why most boycotts of talk radio hosts and Fox News tend to fail is that they galvanize their supporters behind them. Public pressure campaigns targeting advertisers may get a few to drop out, but someone always replaces them.
And, chances are, even if Obeidallah’s tactic succeeds on some small level, how many people who watch Fox News but don’t want to pay a fee to MSNBC or CNN in their cable package could pressure their cable companies to do the same thing Obeidallah is calling for? Heck, it bothers me that CNN and MSNBC get something from my monthly cable bill. Given the way Fox News’ audience outnumbers MSNBC’s and CNN’s, this grand plan could backfire spectacularly.
Obeidallah’s big mistake here is that he cares more about sticking it to Fox News than making his own network more competitive. Blame the guys on top because you’re not doing so well. Typical left-wing nonsense.
