Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 8/3-6. All adults. MoE 2% (No trend lines)
How often do you watch ___; daily, at least once a week, a few times a month, rarely, or never?
Daily Weekly Monthly Never
FOX NEWS 12 13 5 66
Dem 11 12 5 68
Rep 25 27 7 38
Ind 7 7 4 76
Northeast 6 7 4 78
South 19 20 6 51
Midwest 10 11 5 70
West 11 12 5 68
Daily Weekly Monthly Never
CNN 15 14 7 61
Dem 26 25 8 37
Rep 8 7 8 74
Ind 12 11 6 68
Northeast 20 19 9 49
South 7 6 5 80
Midwest 19 18 8 52
West 16 15 7 57
Daily Weekly Monthly Never
MSNBC 6 10 2 77
Dem 14 21 3 53
Rep 2 7 2 89
Ind 3 7 2 87
Northeast 11 16 3 64
South 2 4 1 88
Midwest 7 12 2 75
West 5 10 2 78
Cable news networks have a level of influence that far exceeds their audience, since their actual audience is actually quite small. Most people simple don't watch cable news networks, but the ones that do are generally influentials.
Republicans watch Fox News and nothing else, Democrats split between MSNBC and CNN, and Independents watch nothing. MSNBC, in particular, depends on Democrats for the vast majority of its audience. One would think they'd realize this and get rid of Joe Scarborough to boost its morning ratings.
The South, unlike the rest of the country, appears to have their TV dials stuck on "FOX NEWS". Except for the youth, that is. 82 percent of 18-29-year-old respondents never watched FNC.
We then asked, "When it comes to accuracy and trustworthiness as a source of news would you say that [Media Org] is extremely reliable, reliable, unreliable, or extremely unreliable?"
Combining "extremely reliable" and "reliable", and "unreliable" and "extremely unreliable", Fox News clocked in at 35-41. Republicans (and the South) obviously think they're the word of god, while Democrats think it's shit.
CNN came in at 44-34. For Republicans, it was 20-61. They actually believe all that crap about the "Communist News Network". CNN garnered good numbers from Democrats (56-20) and Independents (48-30). Again, the South (28-53) was at odds with the rest of the country, which generally gave the network high marks for accuracy and trustworthiness.
As for MSNBC, Democrats gave it the highest marks (37-7), followed by Independents (24-16). Republicans, of course, think the network is crap -- 6-31. MSNBC was easily the least-recognized network of the bunch, with 60 percent of respondents unable to give an opinion. That "not sure" number was only 22 percent for CNN, and 24 percent for FNC.