Thursday, May 19, 2005

Media Troubles in Wingnuttia, Too



Though this is all pretty iffy stuff. But it looks like the popularity of Fox News is declining:

Here's something you won't hear on Fox News -- ratings for the cable news channel have been plummeting since before the November election.

According to TV Newser, the number of people watching Fox during prime time in the 25 to 54 age bracket dropped in April for the sixth straight month.

TV Newser cited a CNN press release which gave these totals for Fox's primetime audience in the 25 to 54 age bracket: Oct. 04: 1,074,000; Nov. 04: 891,000; Dec. 04: 568,000; Jan. 05: 564,000; Feb. 05: 520,000; March 05: 498,000; April 05: 445,000. That amounts to a decline of 58 percent, with no sign of leveling off.

The reason for saying this is iffy is that other cable news aren't doing that well, either. Maybe people are just tired of the incessant politicking? Though CNN's ratings have stabilized in the last month and Fox's keep on falling. Dare one hope that Americans are learning? Nah.

James Wolcott gives us a funny story about the National Review Online (NRO), the web-version of the wingnut newspaper. The NRO was having a fund-raiser:

Over the weekend, I noticed that the fundraising thermometer on the site seemed stuck just above $20,000. Perhaps, I thought, there is a lag time before they update the graphic. But each time I checked in the red in thermometer had barely budged upward.

Then the thermometer was removed and the publisher thanked for contributions while acknowledging that they fell a bit short of the mark, which seems to have been $100,000.

None of this is definite, but it's interesting. Especially when one remembers that the wingnut Washington Times never makes any money. And when one remembers how the mantra of the right is that we should let the markets decide what survives.