The photo above is a screencap from an unembeddable table at The Huffington Post, documenting that Fox News had the top ten cable news programs for the second quarter of 2009.
The HuffPo article is brief and doesn't delve into the reasons for these results. It would seem to me that one could divide the American public into A) Those Who Watch Lots Of Television, and B) those who don't. According to the data, Those Who Watch Lots Of Television favor "Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, USA, and TNT" as the top four channels for "total day." They then rely on Fox as their source of news.
Those of us who don't watch lots of television get our news from the internet.
While you may be correct, you don't cite any numbers to back up your assertion.
ReplyDeleteFor example, it could be those who only watch just a little TV concentrate it on FOX, while those who watch a lot of TV spread their watching out among hundreds of channels.
(Truthfully, I probably agree with you. But we must be careful about reading things into statistics that aren't there -- especially since the statistics themselves are so easy to manipulate into whatever somebody wants to say)
Or non-TV watchers read newspapers. I know a lot has been said about the death of the daily, but let's face it, people do still read them.
ReplyDeleteI personally don't watch television, especially news, since most news channels (including FOX) have deteriorated into uninformative "clips" that would warm the heart of anyone inflicted with Attention Deficit Disorder. Add to that the habit of all the networks bringing talking heads to the screen to shout down the opposition (either lefties or righties) and it leaves little doubt that television journalism sucks. I'm so sick of Keith Olberman and Bill O'Reiley going at each other.
ReplyDeleteBe that as it may, I do get my news from FoxNews.com, where I can handpick the articles I want to read (so many are from AP anyway). I choose Fox (and I think a large number of Fox viewers do as well) because Fox SEEMS to be slanted more centrist or conservatively (depending on your viewpoint).
America is center right folks. I think I remember Stan posting a really cool line graph of a comparison between congress and the citizenry they represent. Congress was two hills at the far ends of the spectrum while us normal Americans were in the middle.
Those folks that watch Fox News are dedicated. Fox caters to their tastes...conservativism as defined by today's Republican Party. You know: anti-gay, anti-immigrant, pro-gun, anti-choice, anti-Democrat, etc.. It's the only channel that validates the worldview of this shrinking segment of our society. And it is a shrinking demographic - they have a lock on the 60+ age demo.
ReplyDeleteI know Fox loves to play up this angle...who cares? As they get more extreme in their programming choices, their influence in our politics becomes more marginal.
And only a Fox News watcher will assume that this country is center-right. The rest of us know better.