Fox News’ Ratings Way Up Since White House Declared War on It
Oh, the irony. Or maybe not. I could have predicted that the flap would be a ratings booster for Fox News. People who never watched the channel would be wondering what all the fuss was about, and those who occasionally watched Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity are probably more regular. Anecdotally, I’d never watched Glenn Beck’s show until Color of Change declared war on him.
From Hot Air:
It’s a nine-percent bump in the two weeks since Anita Dunn’s whine heard ’round the world — in terms of overall audience. Among the coveted 25-54 demographic? A 14-percent bump. Good work, Barry. People keep telling me that this PR offensive by the White House benefits both sides but I don’t see how that’s true. If the goal is to contain Fox by framing the stories it breaks — Van Jones, ACORN, etc — as somehow illegitimate, then every tenth of a point that Fox’s ratings go up undermines that goal. There will come a point where other news nets will follow Fox’s lead simply for business reasons, ideology or no ideology; follow the link, eyeball the list of top 20 news shows, and ask yourself how far we are from that point, really. To put it in perspective: “Red Eye,” at 3 a.m., is beating Campbell Brown at 8 p.m. on CNN in the demo. (Worse, perhaps: Anderson Cooper is getting beat by… re-runs of Nancy Grace.)
It’s clear that people prefer the opinion shows on Fox News as well as MSNBC (whose ratings are nowhere close to Fox News’) to the staid, straight news programs on CNN and HLN. And why not? The straight news shows are on all day long on all four cable networks, and there’s also the nightly news programs on the broadcast networks. IOW, there are plenty of places to watch the straight news. But Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity or Keith Olbermann bring an entertainment value that is obviously attracting eyeballs on a nightly basis. That must be worrisome to the White House, if they didn’t want people watching or listening to Fox News.
Cross-posted at Gold-Plated Witch on Wheels.
Dana Pico:
It was all part of a plot, you see. President Obama is a big fan of Alison Cammarota, and, Ivy League smart as he is, he knew that this would drive up Fox’s ratings.
27 October 2009, 6:22 amPerry:
Oh I’m sure, Dana, that FoxNews knows full well that their ratings will increase in direct proportion to their outrage, because the wingnuts come out of the woodwork to view such an anti-Obama spectacle.
Makes Sharon feel sooo good!
Btw, Sharon refused to answer my yes or no question about whether she would like to see President Obama assassinated, posed to her by me as a test of sorts, on her blog a couple of days ago. Same question also to John Hitchcock, who also refused to provide a yes or no answer.
Sorry to put these two people on the spot to highlight this issue, but this is very disturbing to me, because now I wonder how many millions are out there who similarly refuse to answer immediately with a “No!” Is the Obama hatred out there really this deep? Maybe Sharon and John will reconsider after seeing this paragraph.
Anyway, back to FoxNews, their prime motive is about ratings/money over country, or so it seems.
This is also about living up to being the communication arm of the GOP. There is no doubt in my mind that they are!
So what about their 14% boost. What is it, something like 3 million viewers total, in a population of 320 million? Miniscule! But enough to pump up the wingnuts, who at the most represent about 20% of the electorate, thank god! That said, no doubt, the wingnuts are very vocal, with the help of FoxNews have the potential of being very influential. However, I look at them as being equivalent to yelling fire in a church. Discerning people understand this very well, and can be just as influential, I would ‘hope’!
My main point, though, I’m glad to see Obama push back against all the trash talk by Beck, Hannity, and O’Reilly. They must be revealed to the bulk of the 320 million Americans for what is really going on over there at FoxNews, in spite of the unintended byproduct of enhancing their ratings.
27 October 2009, 9:22 amYorkshire:
Perry:
I’m glad to see Obama push back against all the trash talk by Beck,
Was it “trash talk” about Van Jones? Or did Beck tell it as it was? Just curious. And further curious, do you like people like Anita Dunn who gets inspiration from her personal favorite philosper, Mao, advising the President? Just Curious. And do you call the exposing far left views of Van Jones and Dunn, “Trash Talk”?
27 October 2009, 9:33 amPerry:
Yorkshire: “And do you call the exposing far left views of Van Jones and Dunn, “Trash Talk”?”
Yes, most definitely!
I go on performance more than I do about what the Obama enemies drum up.
Kindly tell me, Yorkshire, how either Van Jones or Anita Dunn were/are lacking in performance on their jobs?
I mean, look at Arab/Persian hater Dick Cheney! Job performance is the key!!!
27 October 2009, 10:15 amYorkshire:
Perry:
Yorkshire: “And do you call the exposing far left views of Van Jones and Dunn, “Trash Talk”?”
Yes, most definitely!
I go on performance more than I do about what the Obama enemies drum up.
Kindly tell me, Yorkshire, how either Van Jones or Anita Dunn were/are lacking in performance on their jobs?
If applying for civilian gummint jobs requiring a clearence, these two wouldn’t pass. So, why would you want them in the WH? I don’t get it Perry, you have no problem with a Van Jones, a 9/11 truther and far Left radical being a presidential adviser. You have no problem with a Valerie Jarrett who said they have followed Van Jones career for a long while, knowing what he was, and yet let him in the WH. How far into being a far left radical is fine for you to be White House advisers? It seems you’re not worried about Left Wing Radicals in the WH as long as the do their jobs.
27 October 2009, 10:29 amDana Pico:
Perry wrote:
Exposing the background of people like Mr Jones tells us someting about his judgement, and his judgement is something which would have been used in the performance of his duties. Wouldn’t you call that important?
You say that you go strictly on job performance, but most people get hired based on past performance, on teir résumés. What Mr Beck exposed concerning Mr Jones was the part of his résumé that he didn’t want people to see, and the part, once made public, which meant he shouldn’t have been hired in the first place.
If you go by performance strictly after he has been in te job, then you are talking about a blind hire, with no idea if he will succeed or fail until he has succeeded or failed.
27 October 2009, 12:47 pmDana Pico:
It’s interesting that some people slam Fox News as propaganda, yet the attack point is being made for a Fox News contributor getting something right! Perry would have us “investigate” Glenn Beck, to see if he actually has assassination conspiracies going behind his words, yet is annoyed that Glenn Beck actually did investigate te background of a government official who would have real power.
27 October 2009, 12:49 pmDNW:
Who died and left you as the Grand Inquisitor? Guilty of a “failure to denounce”, are they? You, bloody ferret.
27 October 2009, 1:08 pmYorkshire:
Perry:
I mean, look at Arab/Persian hater Dick Cheney!!
OK Perry, back this statement up!
27 October 2009, 1:13 pmSharon:
Btw, Sharon refused to answer my yes or no question about whether she would like to see President Obama assassinated, posed to her by me as a test of sorts, on her blog a couple of days ago.
As I told you at my blog, there’s no reason for me to answer your question. I’ve done nothing to indicate I want President Obama assassinated. What you are engaging in is the most despicable sort of sliming imaginable.
We get that you don’t like free speech, Perry. You think the fact that you consider a phrase Glenn Beck has used in multiple circumstances describing multiple people to mean assassination, and, therefore, it should be “investigated.” Yet you have never denounced the behavior of leftwingers including Keith Olbermann, who regularly denounced and attacked the previous president in ways far more vicious than anything Glenn Beck has said.
I’m delighted Fox News’ ratings have increased in light of attempts at suppression. But I guess that’s because I think sunlight is the best disinfectant and this White House needs a lot of it.
27 October 2009, 1:16 pmHarrison:
See I think Obama really believed all that BS about governing from the Center and he is really a Republican who watches Fox News. How else to explain that his attacks on Fox would not have raised its ratings? If you don’t believe this then you’d have to believe Obama and his people are stupid as to how this would play out.
27 October 2009, 1:52 pmJeff:
Yorkie, Dana: if you were cool with Monica Goodling, you have to be cool with Van Jones. Fair’s fair. You have to realize that while Jones and Dunn look far-left to you, that’s only because you’re on the far right. And that while Goodling and her ilk looked far-right to me, that’s only because I’m on the far left. (Incidentally, this works the other way too, Perry. If you thought Goodling should have been ousted for her ultra-conservative theocratic views, you can’t whine much when rightists think Jones ought to be disqualified.)
Your disagreement with Jones’ ideology is legitimate, and I understand that. But Obama’s election has consequences, one of which is the appointment of people with whom you disagree to executive positions. Eccentric viewpoints are not grounds for dismissal. Incompetence is. Neither Jones nor Dunn demonstrated incompetence, and neither should have been released. (In case you haven’t noticed, I’m really blaming Obama for caving to the right in a way that Bush never did to the left…)
Anyway, back on topic. There’s an old adage that says “bad publicity is better than no publicity.” That’s at work here. There’s also a Bernard Effect here, drawing people into Fox because someone in a position of authority says Fox shouldn’t be listened to…
(Bernard Effect = the inevitable increase in popularity of something after an authority figure condemns it. Named after an apocryphal story about a preacher who inadvertantly popularized playing cards by going on a crusade denouncing them, believed to be based on St. Bernardin of Siena.)
27 October 2009, 2:00 pmYorkshire:
Jeff:
Bernard Effect = the inevitable increase in popularity of something after an authority figure condemns it. Named after an apocryphal story about a preacher who inadvertantly popularized playing cards by going on a crusade denouncing them, believed to be based on St. Bernardin of Siena.)
Worked well with drugs!
27 October 2009, 2:12 pmPerry:
Sharon: “We get that you don’t like free speech, Perry.”
Another Sharon assumption that is totally false. That I object to a point made, or to someone’s behavior, like Rush or Glenn or the like, does not mean that I don’t countenance free speech. I merely picked up Glenn Beck’s saying that he “wanted to bring Obama down”. He didn’t say he did not want him reelected. He didn’t even say he wanted him to fail. He said “bring Obama down”. I’d like to have the man investigated, rather than to wait until some kook assassinates Obama and then start investigating. Then we would be saying, well we must to look into this.
PS: Sharon: “What you are engaging in is the most despicable sort of sliming imaginable.”
Liar, idiot, stupid, …, I suppose that’s not you sliming, right Sharon? You give it out, but cannot take it. You were asked a simple question, which you chose to duck. That’s not sliming!
I compared this to the anti-abortion rhetoric that emboldens kooks, who then intimidate patients and even murder doctors who perform legal abortions. Do we always have to wait until after the crime to start investigating these rabble-rousers, like Glenn Beck. People get investigated, sometimes arrested, routinely for verbal threats. That does not violate free speech, it attempts to protect the innocent. Glenn Beck issued a verbal threat against Obama: “I’m going to take that man down!” What does that mean, coming from an obvious kook?
I already withdrew my request for you to answer that question on your blog, Sharon, because your unwillingness to answer it speaks volumes enough, which was my intent in asking it. When asked a question like that, it should be an automatic “no”, rather than to duck it because you did not like it. It was your choice.
27 October 2009, 4:30 pmPerry:
This is a little off the subject, but I thought that both sides of the ideological divide might enjoy this pictorial, which you can see if you click right here:
27 October 2009, 4:37 pmPerry:
Yorkshire: “OK Perry, back this statement up [that Cheney is an Arab/Persion hater]!”
Cheney is a neocon.
Cheney/Bush declared war on Iraq using false pretenses, therefore, anti-Arab.
Cheney/Bush called Iran part of the axis of evil, therefore, anti-Persian.
Cheney/Bush gave unqualified support to Israel, therefore, anti-Arab.
I don’t know how a casual observer in the Arab or Persian world could come to any other conclusion, Yorkshire.
27 October 2009, 4:44 pmPerry:
Dana: “…yet is annoyed that Glenn Beck actually did investigate te background of a government official who would have real power.”
Actually, Dana, on that one, yes I am angry at Glenn Beck, but even angrier at Obama for giving in to it. I have yet to see any evidence that Van Jones’ had any performance problems. This character assassination game has got to be pushed back against. It reminds me of McCarthyism all over again. We are better people than this!
27 October 2009, 4:52 pmHarrison:
So I guess using this logic then 297 Representatives in the House and 77 Senators who voted for the Iraq war are also anti-Arab?
27 October 2009, 5:31 pmEric:
Investigated for what? It’s obvious what Beck meant - he wanted to bring down Obama’s agenda. Anyone can see that. Your view is simply being hyper-paranoid.
27 October 2009, 5:52 pmPerry:
Harrison: “So I guess using this logic then 297 Representatives in the House and 77 Senators who voted for the Iraq war are also anti-Arab?”
No, most of them were deceived by the Cheney/Bush administration. Cheney/Bush were the authors of said deceit. That’s my logic!
27 October 2009, 6:24 pmPerry:
Eric:
How do you know what Beck meant? You don’t; you are guessing. That’s my point exactly.
27 October 2009, 6:26 pmDNW:
Many of you have probably already seen this in the New York Times blog.
Noted without comment, apart from the fact that Fox’s average was greater than the average numbers of all three more left leaning alternatives combined:
27 October 2009, 6:49 pmDana Pico:
Jeff wrote:
While President Obama’s election certainly has consequences, his ability to appoint people unconstrained by the voice of the public is not one of them. Our presidents are constrained by the will of the people in just about everything: they have to have some support for their actions.
Our presidents are not dictators: they require the consent of Congress for many things and, in the end, require some support from the public to get anything done.
27 October 2009, 7:07 pmYorkshire:
Perry:
Yorkshire: “OK Perry, back this statement up [that Cheney is an Arab/Persion hater]!”
Cheney is a neocon.
Cheney/Bush declared war on Iraq using false pretenses, therefore, anti-Arab.
Cheney/Bush called Iran part of the axis of evil, therefore, anti-Persian.
Cheney/Bush gave unqualified support to Israel, therefore, anti-Arab.
I don’t know how a casual observer in the Arab or Persian world could come to any other conclusion, Yorkshire.
You’d have a better chance of convincing me 1+1=3. I asked for proof, and I get a circular argument. Next, Perry proves FDR was anti-German and Japanese. then Truman was anti-Korean, and Johnson was anti-Viet-Namese, Reagan was anti-Panamanian.
27 October 2009, 7:10 pmPerry:
DNW, desperate to make a point: “Noted without comment, apart from the fact that Fox’s average was greater than the average numbers of all three more left leaning alternatives combined:”
Just barely, DNW: 689K for Fox, 673K for the other three, 2.3% less. That’s probably within the margin of error. If you consider that Fox represents the Right POV, and the other three represent the Left POV, each POV is represented equally on the TV air waves.
27 October 2009, 7:14 pmDana Pico:
Perry wrote:
OK, that simply means that he is intelligent and sensible. Still, “neocon” is a term thrown around far too loosely, and is too poorly defined. It’s used as shorthand, but it’s a shorthand which tells us less about the person being labelled a neocon — or even accepting the label for himself — than it might. Lte’s just say, for the purposes of this comment, that Mr Cheney believes in the inherent superiority of American culture and democracy, and believes in a foreign policy that advances American goals, rather than a let-happen-what-will isolationism.
No, way too far a leap. Mr Cheney was also Secretary of Defense under the elder President Bush, and as such was actively defending one Arab country, Kuwait, from aggression by another. What Mr Cheney was doing was pursuing American interests.
President Bush was simply telling the truth. Looking at the three regimes at the time, it’s a bit difficult to find three worse ones.
One of us doesn’t think that being pro-Israel means anti-Arab. But President Bush was also the first president to call, specifically, for an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and he worked toward that goal, even though he never came close to achieving it.
Sorry, but those “definitions” you gave are wholly simplistic; it’s like saying that if you oppose Affirmative Action, you must be racist, or if you don’t support President Obama, you must hate blacks. Such makes for good demagoguery, but has no intellectual support.
As an aside, I have asked Donald Douglas, a political science professor who sometimes styles himself as the Americaneocon how he defines neoconservative.
27 October 2009, 7:32 pmDana Pico:
Perry concedes:
Shall we take this as a concession that CNN, MSNBC and CNN HLN are all leftist or, to use the reverse of Perry’s definition for Fox, spokesmen for the Democratic Party?
27 October 2009, 7:36 pmDNW:
Perry, reeling from all of the “good” news, writes:
That is a very strange response for you to make, if one just reflects on it for a moment. I drew no conclusion, I merely noted the data.
It is then your contention with, “the other three represent the Left POV“, that CNN, and Headline News, also represent a distinctively left “POV”?
If this question puzzles you, you will note that my language was comparative and relative. Yours was more unqualified as regards categorizing Headline News, CNN, and the Keith Oldvermin Network for Staring Steatopygous Males Who Wear Suits With Ridiculously Padded Shoulders, under the same “left POV” rubric: essentially implying that all three share the same bias to the same degree.
I expected, frankly, that if you commented at all, you would take issue with my use of the phrase, “… more left leaning … ” especially as regards, say, Headline News.
Instead, you jumped at the chance to assert a virtual point of view identity between them; as if you were anxious to use the numbers to bolster the count of some political constituency.
Of the so-called independents and moderates viewing these four networks, how would you distribute those numbers and percentages out, Perry?
Figure, do you, that half of the Fox viewers see themselves as political moderates, while none of the CNN viewers or Headline News watchers see themselves in that way?
27 October 2009, 8:03 pmDNW:
It certainly seems so.
Let’s see what Perry has to say about it, as he tries to thread the polemical needle while blowing smoke out his … dorsal porthole.
As soon as he recovers from his dizziness, that is.
27 October 2009, 8:09 pmSharon:
It’s interesting that Perry thinks a person should be investigated for saying something he finds offensive, but argues that expressing–dare I say?–offensive beliefs such as a 9/11 Truther should be allowed to continue expressing those things until he does something which, in Perry’s world, disqualifies him for czar status. It’s a rather strange double standard.
27 October 2009, 10:47 pmHarrison:
Perry… right… that evil deception that prevented any of them from looking at the classified documents that were made available to them should they have wanted to look at them?
Got another excuse?
27 October 2009, 10:52 pmYorkshire:
Dana Pico:
Perry concedes:
Just barely, DNW: 689K for Fox, 673K for the other three, 2.3% less. That’s probably within the margin of error. If you consider that Fox represents the Right POV, and the other three represent the Left POV, each POV is represented equally on the TV air waves.
Shall we take this as a concession that CNN, MSNBC and CNN HLN are all leftist or, to use the reverse of Perry’s definition for Fox, spokesmen for the Democratic Party?
I thought that was a given fact already.
28 October 2009, 8:30 amDana Pico:
Since President Obama began his attack on Fox, Fox’s ratings have increased. Sensible people understand that when a politician attacks a particular news source for its reporting, that politician is trying to hide something.
28 October 2009, 8:36 amPerry:
Dana makes an absurd claim: “Sensible people understand that when a politician attacks a particular news source for its reporting, that politician is trying to hide something.”
Other “sensible people” would view that statement as a figment based upon hyperbolic ideological paranoia!
28 October 2009, 10:04 amYorkshire:
Perry:
Dana makes an absurd claim: “Sensible people understand that when a politician attacks a particular news source for its reporting, that politician is trying to hide something.”
Other “sensible people” would view that statement as a figment based upon hyperbolic ideological paranoia!
Hmmm, yeah, the whole discussion above was about Afghanistan, wasn’t it?
28 October 2009, 10:32 amDNW:
Was Perry around when Randi Rhodes was spouting off about her wish that George Bush would take a bullet in the back of the head? “Works for me …” she infamously said.
28 October 2009, 11:16 amJeff:
Dana, fair point, but in the case of Jones conservatives had no basis on which to base their attacks. Like I said, competence is what matters. Obama’s election means that he gets to run the executive branch for four years. If he runs it poorly, or if his appointees run it poorly, he should hear about it from Congress and from the people. But there’s no proof that Jones was doing his job poorly.
28 October 2009, 11:55 amEric:
I disagree. Their views and/or associations matter too. Would a competent admin member who was also a member of the KKK be acceptable to you? Or the American people? Or someone who said their favorite political philosopher was Hitler? Competence alone isn’t the only standard, after all, there were competent Nazis in the German government. Doesn’t make it right.
28 October 2009, 12:22 pmDNW:
It’s a double standard if one accepts the premise that the left and the non-left are intrinsically the same moral kinds.
The classical, i.e., Marxist leftist, certainly doesn’t believe that, and neither do the modern utilitarian welfare-state spawn.
In fact, the whole notion of intrinsic kinds is widely rejected by leftist analysts.
I think that in general and until recently, the conservatives of this country (despite all their past talk about godless communists etc.)have historically underestimated this genuine moral otherness of the left: because they couldn’t/can’t really come to grips with the fact that the lefties have fully integrated the relativistic purposeless cosmic world-view they espouse into their basic moral personalities.
It was/is probably difficult for someone raised in a healthy family with a reasonable religious upbringing to offhand inhabit the mental space of the modern liberal and see things through their lenses.
Their world looks different.
Politics is the domain of purpose in the leftist moral economy. And although as they see it, all human efforts and actions may be ultimately pointless, there is nonetheless one temporary realm of meaning (satisfaction and growth if you are a Deweyite) where they imagine that they meet to recognize and be recognized, to give and to take, and where social life is built and subjective meanings developed. And that is in the realm of politics.
So, leftist morality is, generally speaking, projective in the sense of be being solely related to some evolutionary or planned outcome the leftist sees as desirable; and extending in moral “fellowship” to those whom they see as sharing a desire for this (assumptively progressive) social re-molding to take place. Or, and to somewhat more abstractly, those amorphous other members of “humanity” who the leftist sees as the downtrodden raw material for the implementation of their reworking projects.
It does not extend to “reactionaries” who do not share, or who actively oppose, their re-molding goals; and it is not based on some concept of intrinsic rights of, and developed duties relating to, some definable and universal human nature.
So if you are a different kind from them, there is no obligation (certainly none imposed by an imaginary God who made the kinds) on the part of a leftist to treat you with the type of principled consistency they might view as obligatory when confronting their own. You are simply the comic “rube”, the pathetic “Neanderthal”, the obnoxious “repukelickan”, or the dangerous reactionary.
Although you may claim that you and your kind have developed the very material world in which they live, you are mistaken if you imagine that they feel any more obligation to treat you sincerely and as an end in yourself, than they would any other form of evolutionary ladder or pioneer species that paves the way for, or provides a sheltering environment or seedbed for, the “more advanced and sensitive” replacement organisms.
Does the maple thank the birch?
When dealing with you then, they rely on rhetoric, mere salesmanship (as Perry has admitted), and polemics insofar as it is expedient.
When they feel that they don’t need even that, their communications will be in the form of directives and demands.
You cannot expect good-faith argument from them, and your experience here probably does not lead you to.
For as Phoenician has admitted, and as Perry just demonstrated with his assassination canard, they are not really arguing.
They are just waging a kind of war by verbal means.
28 October 2009, 12:24 pmSharon:
Was Perry around when Randi Rhodes was spouting off about her wish that George Bush would take a bullet in the back of the head? “Works for me …” she infamously said.
I’m sure Perry would agree that Rhodes should have been investigated and brought before a judge. Pfft.
28 October 2009, 12:29 pmYorkshire:
Eric:
I disagree. Their views and/or associations matter too. Would a competent admin member who was also a member of the KKK be acceptable to you? Or the American people? Or someone who said their favorite political philosopher was Hitler? Competence alone isn’t the only standard, after all, there were competent Nazis in the German government. Doesn’t make it right.
Yeah, I remember the whole discussion on Robert Bork was all about his competency as a judge, or was his hearings all about what he thought and associations.
28 October 2009, 12:30 pmSharon:
How do we define “competence”? That the entire department hadn’t tanked yet? I find it incompetent to hire a guy without any background check, frankly. And Van Jones was in charge of implementing Obama’s green agenda. If the guy was a nut (and he certainly appears to be), why do we need to wait until some large-scale disaster to object?
28 October 2009, 12:30 pmEric:
I watch his show fairly regularly, so I understand his schtick. He’s a little “Over the top” with his rhetoric, but he’s very clear that he does not favor violence of ANY kind, which you’d know if you actually watched his show instead of only getting your information from far left sources. If you knew the context, you’d know that it’s Obama’s left wing agenda that Beck wants to take down, and that to link that to calling for assassination is just plain loopy, and the result of a mind over-fevered by far left rhetoric.
Translation: Stop watching so much MSNBC and Keith Olbermann (talk about a ranting loon!) and actually watch a few hours of FOX before you judge.
28 October 2009, 12:34 pmCommon Sense Political Thought » Blog Archive » What did Fox give up?:
[...] Sharon noted, both here and her own fine site, is that Fox News Channel’s ratings have risen noticeably since the [...]
28 October 2009, 7:28 pmblubonnet:
For the record FOX lied about their numbers. The Nielson report said otherwise. It didn’t move one way or the other. Big surprise. FOX lied again. I don’t know if anyone is around to read this, but it is a fact that FOX lied, yet again, about their ratings going up after the Obama remarks against them.
5 November 2009, 3:07 am