Quote:
Originally Posted by 12clicks
people don't necessarily watch the networks because they prefer a liberal slant.
most watch because it happens to be the channel thats on, because the local news lead in is the news they grew up on, etc.
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If you want to not include broadcast news then we can just look at the numbers. I'm not sure where you got your numbers, but here some from August 31st.
Here is the site
http://tvbythenumbers.com/category/r...ews/cable-news
P2+ Prime Time
FNC ? 2,631,000 viewers
CNN ? 731,000 viewers
MSNBC ?1,093,000 viewers
CNBC ? 186,000 viewers
HLN ? 428,000 viewers
So Fox has 2.61 million viewers and the other networks combined have 2.43. Yes, Fox wins, but it pretty damn close.
Here is something a little more telling.
Live + Same Day Cable News Daily Ratings for August 31, 2010
P2+ Total Day
FNC ? 1,258,000 viewers
CNN ? 391,000 viewers
MSNBC ? 409,000 viewers
CNBC ? 183,000 viewers
HLN ? 273,000 viewers
These are the ratings just from the live broadcasts and the daytime shows. When you add it all up Fox has 1.258 million viewers and the rest get 1.256 million. So it is a virtual tie. The difference maker is Fox's prime time shows like Hannity and O'Reilly that draw big numbers.
If you look on that page for Aug 30th, Fox wins by a little bigger margin, but over the weekend the numbers were almost even with Fox having 1.28million and the rest getting 1.24 million.
To me it looks a lot like this: If you take away the pundit shows they are pretty much even with conservative viewers watching Fox and the liberal viewers watching the other networks and the other 99.5% of the country watching broadcast news, using the internet or just not caring.