Jack Shafer argues that we all need to stop paying attention to cable news, and to Fox News in particular:
Why all this attention when cable news barely matters to most Americans? The average audience commanded by Maddow and Cooper and Hannity and all the others slithering down your cable cord is so tiny you can almost get away with calling cable news a niche media. According to October numbers from TV Newser, the three major cable networks attract an average audience of only 4.2 million viewers during primetime, which is when viewing peaks.
This is by far the biggest pushback I get when I talk to people about the enormous impact that Fox News has had on the conservative movement. Even if they accept my dismal view of Fox News, they wonder how important Fox can be when even their top-rated shows only draw about 3 million viewers.
But the Nielsen numbers for Hannity or Carlson are just snapshots in time. The number of different viewers who watch Fox News at some point during the day is probably upwards of 10-20 million or so. And the number who watch Fox News at some point during the average week is:
Gallup tells us that about 100 million people self-ID as Republicans or Republican leaners. According to Pew, 62% of them watch Fox News at least once or twice a week. That's 62 million conservatives. That's a lot.
Beyond this, there's the fact that Fox viewers tend to be those most interested in politics. They talk to their friends about "things they've heard" and fill your Facebook feed with conservative memes. Their impact goes beyond that 62 million number.
It's nice to think that Fox News is limited to only 3 million viewers—and if all the rest of us started ignoring them it would relegate those viewers to their own private bubble where they would bother us no more. Nice, but wrong. Fox News has a huge audience, and an influence that spreads even beyond that. If we want to crush them—and we really, really do—it's going to take a lot more work than just pretending they don't exist.
In The Atlantic article by Barton Gellman, he describes the 1/6 attackers as mostly not affiliated with known groups like the Proud Boys.
"Over the previous decade, one in four violent extremists arrested by the FBI had been unemployed. But only 7 percent of the January 6 insurgents were jobless, and more than half of the group had a white-collar job or owned their own business... Yet these insurgents were not, by and large, affiliated with known extremist groups. Several dozen did have connections with the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, or the Three Percenters militia, but a larger number—six out of every seven who were charged with crimes—had no ties like that at all."
This is the Fox News and Facebook effect. Republicans are the enemy, well, my enemies anyway. There is no point in denying it. Some are sympathizers, some are organizers, and some will be soldiers in the next fight. You can't crush them. They are going to crush us because we will simply avoid the conflict and appease them until it is too late. The US political system is not equipped to manage this sort of rebellion. I hope I'm wrong. I really hope Gellman is wrong, but this all seems like an endless and relentless descent into political chaos with no way out.
So when democrats talk about climate change or child care tax nonsense, I just shake my head and see it as practically delusional.
According to wikipedia, Trump got 74 million votes in 2020. You point out that 62 million of them get their news from Fox News.
And here we see an example of the Telephone Game at work. The survey is described as "% of U.S. adults who got political news in the past week from ..." and that then becomes "get their news from" yet the question wasn't asking about getting all their news just getting (some) political news. It hardly seems plausible for instance that the 30-odd percent of Democrats who copped to watching Fox in the past week were getting all their (political) news from Fox. As such, it stands to reason that not all the Republicans did either, short of the asserter wielding a sweeping generalization.
There is also the small town tv effect. Go to a dentist, stop at a small restaurant during a road trip, or visit many places in Republican America and you will find communal TVs tuned into Fox News.
Not just Republikan Amerika - almost every waiting room in every garage, doctor's office or other business anywhere but the bluest blue counties. Unadulterated poison dripping into the eyes and ears of people who otherwise might never tune in.
So true. I had to go into my agency's HQ to swap out my ancient laptop for a new one and sure enough the IT help desk had Fox News on in the waiting area. At least the sound was off. Fortunately I did not have to wait long for the process.
Been true since the late 90s.
My Log Cabin Republican friend -- well, he wasn't in the Cabin then, but he was hardcore social conservative GQP, so much so that his Catholic family had converted to Protestantism to protest the liberal JP2 -- had FOXnews on his dorm room teevee all evening from 7pm till 10pm ( when it switched to Howard Stern on E!).
I've stayed at hotels (in New Mexico) where the teevie in the breakfast room was tuned to Faux News, and when I asked if the station could be changed, was told that the hotel was contractually obligated to have Faux and ONLY Faux on, all the time.
The TV's are probably leased, and that's in the lease agreement. Whatever it cost Fox, and the leaser may even be a Fox subsidiary, they make it back in ratings claims--the entire guest list in the hotel is claimed as a viewer.
While the red circle you added to the chart mostly obscures it… what then are we to make of the thirty-odd percent of Democrats who watch? Or is there perhaps less to watching it some time during the week than you are asserting?
Know your enemy?
So it’s ok to watch Fox if you are a Democrat? Sometimes it seems as though when it comes to Fox, Kevin is a hyper-focused, adrenaline-pumped hound.
Correlation in Confirmation is Cause
Correlation in Contradiction is Coincidence…
Just recall that the "faux" watchers are likely anti vaxers, don't wear masks, don't social distance and have a propensity to develop life ending Covid. So, it seems those watching faux tee vee will ultimately dwindle, as will the voters. The repulsive party is killing its own.
One can hope.
FoxNews doesn't make its nut on ratings or advertisers--its profit generator is the cable fees it charges providers.
https://unfoxmycablebox.com/
They raise their rates, and when the providers threaten to drop them to a lower tier, they run a chyron telling the faithful that they're about to lose their news teat, and to complain to the cable company.
Now to early adopters, a cable box now is like a vcr blinking 12:00--a sign of luddite techno-ignorance. Streaming is so much better and cheaper. Cable now is like Blockbuster in the early naughts, an obsolescent venue. Sure, FoxNews can stream, but without the fees from non-watching cable users, they can't afford Hannity's rug allowance.
But you can hurry it along by posting things like this:
https://unfoxmycablebox.com/
What happens when you submit your info to that site? Do they send a complaint to the cable company?
I'd ditch my cable package except that it's the only way to get local sports games - for now - I can only get most Washington Capitals games via NBCSports Washington, apparently ESPN+ blacks out home games if you go that route to see NHL games. I used to care about the Washington Nationals but I got a bit miffed when they had a fire sale last season and no sign whatsoever of efforts to lock in Juan Soto as a face of the franchise much as the Capitals did with Alexander Ovechkin.
If folks follow the links they will find the question was multiple choice...
Again, I don't question the malign influence of Fox. I do criticize the way Kevin ignores talk-back radio, which has an audience of tens of millions, who listen to it almost every day. It also has plenty of ranting show hosts who are far more vicious and unhinged than anybody on cable TV.
That is one shitty image crop.