I'm from Larry Craig's blazing red state. Everywhere I turn, there's Faux News - in the bank, at the gym, in the store. When I look up from the elliptical machine, there's a procession of blowhards on the TV screen.
Boise's purple, so with hope in my heart I walk up to the gym manager and ask him to change the channel please, 'cos not everyone likes or enjoys Fox News on almost all the screens (The only non-Fox channel on was ESPN).
He expresses surprise because "Fox has the highest ratings" and changes one screen to CNN, but the rest stay as they are. Fine. I resolve not to look up while working out, though I'm glad I made my point.
Now, here's the deal.
- In many places in the U.S., Faux is part of basic cable, MSNBC is not. See this diary from Florida, for example. In Idaho there's toxic Faux exposure everywhere you go.
- I don't bother paying for cable AND the Internet. I made my choice and it's the latter. I cancelled my cable subscription nearly three years ago. That means I watch neither Fox, nor MSNBC. I let all the good folks at the blogs parse out the wheat from the chaff and watch what's posted at sites like these.
A 2005 Pew survey shows that as a percentage, far more liberals use the Internet as the main source of news than any other group - 37% of liberals as compared to 24% of the general population.
Among Democrats, nearly twice as many Conservative Democrats as Liberals cite one of the three network outlets as their main source of news (42% vs. 22%). Age accounts for much of this gap: The network news audience is older a third of those age 65 and older get most of their news from the networks, compared with 20% of those below age 30. And Conservative Democrats are, as a group, much older than Liberals.
Simply stated if you're young and liberal, you are quite likely to get most of your news online.
- The median age of Fox News viewers is 65. The average IQ of the Fox News viewer is pretty close. So is the Emotional Intelligence Quotient.
Fox News probably has more viewers because those who get aroused watching Sarah Palin probably are not smart or resourceful enough to plug in a computer.
Most of us who are not old, grouchy dittoheads either pay extra for subscription cable or get our news online. I don't watch Fox. I don't watch MSNBC either. Given a choice, I'd rather watch the latter. But, seriously, cable news is so yesterday.
If I'm reserving a room at a hotel, I always ask them if they have MSNBC. Whenever I visit my bank or other public places, if Fox is the only choice on television, I politely let the people in charge know that as a customer I would like other options. And I always carry my iPod while waiting in line so that I never have to hear Hannity's voice.
Edited to add: Oct. 6, 2009. Nielsen ratings (in thousands).