Bob Becklel, Liberal Fox Commentator, Fired Again, This Time for Making "Racially Insensitive" Remark to Black Fox IT Employee

Just a lot of bad news lately. Not about Beckel -- I could care less.

But Fox is just really losing lately. Ailes died, and their ratings have been dropping.

e sudden death of Roger Ailes (R.I.P.) yesterday is a grim omen for the network he envisioned and built. In the wake of the recent upheavals at Fox News, the conservative cable television network’s ratings are experiencing a precipitous decline from cable news leadership for the first time in the history of the channel. As the rest of the mainstream media continue their efforts to undermine and “resist” the Trump Administration, this development bodes ill for the future -- not only of the unique kind of fair and balanced if right of center reporting pioneered by the Fox News Channel (FNC), but of the prospects for conservatives continuing to have a major media platform, maintain power, and advance their agenda in the months and years ahead.

By "precipitous decline," he means this:

The TV Newser ratings summaries tell the story. Compare the data from random pre-scandal date of Thursday, November 17, 2016 with the latest, Thursday, May 11.

Pre-scandal, FNC comfortably won the prime demo (age 25-54, the group that interests advertisers) in both prime time and all day. In prime time, FNC's 646,000 prime demo viewers were more than double either CNN (234%) or MSNBC (217.5%) totals on a November 2016 Thursday. The ratios were even better for Fox in the all-day traffic for the prime demo: 274% of MSNBC and 218% of CNN's prime demo viewers.

By last Thursday, MSNBC won the prime prime time demo with 635,000 viewers, 126% of FNC's prime time demo. Poor CNN was still beaten by Fox, but the ratio was painfully close to 100% --109.3%, to be exact. The all-day traffic also shows decline for FNC, but it still managed to win the top spot, bringing in 104% of MSNBC's traffic and 106% of CNN's viewership.

I take no joy in these figures. We need Fox to thrive.

The Murdoch Babies are like that female owner in Major League, trying to push attendance low enough to justify a move to mainstream liberal respectability.

posted by Ace at 05:08 PM

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