Fox News claims that it’s "fair and balanced," which is demonstrably false. They also like to claim that they have high ratings. Also false.
In the last few days, two different diarists on Daily Kos have expressed their deep concern by asking, "Why are Fox News ratings so high?" They both suggested that, somehow, Fox News must be cheating. They said Fox News must be manipulating the ratings or lying about their total number of viewers, which sounds to me like a conspiracy theory (CT). Plus, neither person offered any evidence to prove this CT.
Also, you might have noticed that trolls are fond of saying "If Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann are so smart, why does Fox News have much higher ratings than MSNBC?" Hello, Mr. Trolly McTrollerson, let me explain it in words you can understand. Television is like high school. The most popular kids are almost never the smartest ones.
But the fact is, the ratings for Fox News aren’t really very high. Shall we sort through the numbers? Follow me below.
Let’s begin with the big picture. According to the Census Bureau, there are approximately 308 million people in the U.S.
According to the Nielsen Company’s latest estimates there are 292 million people aged two or older living in a TV household. This leaves about 16 million people who fall in the category of infants, homeless people, people too poor to own a TV, incarcerated prisoners (possibly), or people who choose not to own a TV.
Sometimes a TV household contains more than one person – a spouse, a roommate, or some children or various other relatives. Nielsen says there are about 115 million households with a TV and, of those, around 100 million have access to cable/dish channels.
Fox News Does Have Better TV Ratings Than MSNBC
Let’s pick a recent day that can be googled: Wednesday, March 31.
Here what tvbythenumbers.com says (Note: P2+ means "people aged 2 or over" and Live + Same Day means "people who watched the channel live or recorded it on DVR and watched it before 3AM in the morning"):
Live + Same Day Cable News Daily Ratings for March 31, 2010
P2+ Total Day
FNC – 1,222,000 viewers
MSNBC – 457,000 viewers
CNN – 442,000 viewers
HLN – 268,000 viewers
CNBC – 191,000 viewers
P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 2,534,000 viewers
MSNBC –1,100,000 viewers
CNN – 704,000 viewers
HLN –532,000 viewers
CNBC – 310,000 viewers
What does this mean? Well, Fox News got about twice or thrice as many viewers as MSNBC on Wednesday. Therefore, Fox is more popular than MSNBC, right? But there are 292 million people in TV households. So Fox averaged about one person in 117 during prime time. And MSNBC averaged one in 265. Neither channel can claim that they dominate.
What About Other Media?
But let’s think about that. If you’re under the age of about 40, you might watch Rachel or Keith on your computer. Or you might download a podcast. Or you might check DKos for the latest news from MSNBC. None of these things counts when Nielsen calculates the ratings.
Plus, if you’re over the age of about 60, you’re more likely to be staying at home during prime-time, more likely to be a Republican, less likely to have a computer (or iPod or iPad), and more likely to be watching Fox News. Fox gets a boost from old white-guy Republicans. I’m just saying.
Let’s look a little closer at one particular time prime-time slot from Wednesday (March 31). Here’s a comparison of the broadcast networks and the cable news networks (from here and here):
Broadcast Networks (9PM 3/31/10):
FOX American Idol 19.96 million viewers
ABC Modern Family 9.34
CBS Criminal Minds 7.86
NBC Law & Order: Special Victims Unit 5.57
CW Fly Girls 1.17
Cable news shows (9PM 3/31/10) – P2+ (25-54) (35-64)
FNC Hannity – 2,051,000 viewers (474,000) (882,000)
MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show —1,234,000 viewers (345,000) (648,000)
CNN Larry King Live —785,000 viewers (140,000) (240,000)
HLN Joy Behar – 535,000 viewers (147,000) (260,000)
CNBC American Greed — 381,000 viewers (153,000) (234,000)
Hannity didn’t beat Maddow by much (2.1 million to 1.2 million). And if you look at the demographic of people aged 25-54, it’s 474K to 345K. So Sean was about 33% more popular than Rachel. But he lost big to American Idol, Criminal Minds (which was a repeat) and SVU (also a repeat).
Maybe that’s not fair. American Idol is one of the top-rated shows. Let’s go back an hour to 8PM on 3/31.
Broadcast Networks (8PM 3/31/10):
FOX Human Target 8.18 million viewers
NBC Minute to Win It 6.29
ABC It’s The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown 4.95
CW America’s Next Top Model 3.22
CBS New Adventures of Old Christine 4.92
Cable news shows at 8PM 3/31/10 – P2+ (25-54) (35-64)
FNC The O’Reilly Factor – 3,493,000 viewers (908,000) (1,667,000)
MSNBC Countdown w/ K. Olbermann – 1,269,000 viewers (342,000) (603,000)
HLN Nancy Grace – 714,000 viewers (191,000) (361,000)
CNN Campbell Brown – 482,000 viewers (129,000) (202,000)
CNBC American Greed – 201,000 viewers (63,000) (128,000)
I suppose you could say O’Reilly beat Olbermann by about three to one on Wednesday. One in 83 people with access to a TV watched O’Reilly on Wednesday. But O’Reilly was less popular than "It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown," which was made in 1974. Billo the clown was less popular than a Peanuts cartoon from 36 years ago. He was less popular than "The New Adventures of Old Christine" or "Minute to Win It" or "Human Target," which in my opinion are all pretty crappy shows.
So, yes, Fox gets higher numbers than MSNBC. But what about the mainstream media, like the nightly newscasts from NBC, ABC, and CBS? Here’s what the NY Times said on April 1 (Ratings Fall on Newscasts at 2 Networks) about the declining ratings (of average # of viewers) at the networks:
Over all, the numbers were: 9.92 million viewers for NBC; 8.27 million for ABC and 6.45 million for CBS.
Is this a signal that viewers are abandoning network newscasts in droves?
Not really. The number of viewers still watching the three shows together — more than 24 million in the first quarter — continue to dwarf any news program on cable.
Even the worst-rated of the three network news shows (CBS) easily gets a bigger average number of viewers than O’Reilly (or Charlie Brown’s Easter Beagle).
The Most Popular Shows Last Week
Here are the top rated TV shows from the week ending March 28 (link here). This includes people aged 2 and over, who watched a show live or on the same day (as I explained earlier, if you record something on your DVR and watch it before 3AM, Nielsen counts it as "same day"):
1 American Idol-Tue Fox 24,211,000
2 Dancing With the Stars ABC 24,185,000
3 American Idol-Wed Fox 21,437,000
4 Undercover Boss CBS 16,717,000
5 60 Minutes CBS 14,487,000
6 Two And A Half Men CBS 14,459,000
7 The Big Bang Theory CBS 13,415,000
8 NCIS CBS 13,044,000
9 Amazing Race CBS 12,729,000
10 Castle ABC 12,207,000
11 NCAA Bskbl Chmp Sat-2 CBS 12,052,000
12 Grey’s Anatomy-Thu 9pm ABC 11,567,000
13 NCIS: Los Angeles CBS 11,335,000
14 NCAA Bskbl Chmp Thu-2 CBS 11,317,000
15 Survivor Wed CBS 11,148,000
Here are the top cable shows for last week (link here):
1 Kids Choice Awards Nick Sat 08:00p 7,639,000
2 Victorious Nick Sat 09:30p 5,695,000
3 Life Disc Sun 08:00p 5,290,000
4 Life Disc Sun 09:00p 5,280,000
5 Spongebob Nick Sun 10:30a 5,114,000
6 WWE Wrestling USA Mon 10:00p 4,869,000
7 Spongebob Nick Sat 09:30a 4,858,000
8 Spongebob Nick Sun 10:00a 4,746,000
9 iCarly Nick Sun 11:00a 4,562,000
10 Spongebob Nick Thu 05:30p 4,324,000
11 NCIS USA Mon 08:00p 4,245,000
12 Spongebob Nick Thu 05:00p 4,186,000
13 Spongebob Nick Sun 09:30a 4,178,000
14 Penguins of Madagascar Nick Sat 10:00a 4,157,000
15 NCIS USA Wed 08:00p 4,146,000
OK, I’ll admit that an episode of Bill O’Reilly was #23 on the cable list last week. It was in between two episodes of Spongebob (which for some reason seems to dominate the cable list). Maybe Bill O'Reilly would get better ratings if he lived in a pineapple under the sea.
One More Thing About Spelling
Nielsen, the ratings company, has an "en" ending, not an "on" ending. I’m old enough to still care about spelling things right. It’s Nielsen – not Neilsen or Neilson or Nielson.