Actually I don't think that's why Fox has higher ratings.
Fox sucks up to the Republicans almost as bad as MSNBC sucks up to the Dems.
I think it's simply that the clowns on Fox News (OReilly and Hannity) are far more entertaining than the clowns of MSNBC (Maddow, Sharpton, and Matthews).
Get some better, more charismatic people at CNN or MSNBC and they could turn that around.
The news channels are just entertainment channels now. Look at CNN. They brought in Piers Morgan. What a joke!
And now they have "shows" on CNN instead of news (though I have to say that Anthony Bourdain's show is fucking awesome...but it's not the news)
MSNBC? Forget about it.
It's like you walked into a roomful of people from "Revenge Of The Nerds".
They are so boring and condescending it's pathetic.
No, Fox wins because they have charismatic entertainers who love to bring on people with oppposing views and argue with them like it's the Jerry Springer show. And that's entertaining. It's not "news", but neither is MSNBC.
To see the actual news...you can go to Fox and watch the top of the hour news break where they just report what's going on with no "opinion".
Other than that? Tune in to CBS, NBC, or ABC news and watch the first five minutes (which is when they actually report shit).
AlJazeera America reports news sometimes as well.