Fox News' Ratings Take Another Slide

Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report at 6:29 AM on January 31, 2008.

I'll admit it; I have a special fondness for news about Fox News' declining ratings. There's just something about the drop in numbers that helps restore my faith in the American political system.

Eric Boehlert has the latest, in a great piece on why the Republican network is poised to have a very rough year.

The point is that Fox News years ago made an obvious decision to appeal almost exclusively to Republican viewers. The good news then for Fox News was that it succeeded. The bad news now for Fox News is that it succeeded.

Meaning, when the GOP catches a cold, everybody at Fox News gets sick. As blogger Logan Murphy put it at Crooks and Liars, "Watching FOXNews getting their comeuppance has been fun to watch. They made their bed, now they're having to lie in it and it's not too comfortable."

The most obvious signs of Fox News' downturn have been the cable ratings for the big primary and caucus votes this year, as well as the high-profile debates. With this election season generating unprecedented voter and viewer interest, Fox News' rating bumps to date have remained underwhelming, to say the least.

In 2004, on the night of the New Hampshire primary, for example, Fox News beat CNN by 200,000 viewers, despite the fact that there was no Republican contest at the time. Four years later, CNN beat Fox News by 250,000 viewers, despite very competitive contests in both parties. (On Saturday night, when results of the Dems' South Carolina primary were dominating the news, Fox News came in third, behind both CNN and MSNBC.)

It's been like this throughout the primary process, and Boehlert notes that the netroots-driven boycott has had a lot to do with it.

The problem for Fox News is that it's the Democratic race that's creating most of the excitement, yet Fox News has been forced to mostly watch the race from the sidelines. That's because last winter, after Fox News tried to smear Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for purportedly attending a radical Muslim school as a child, liberal bloggers launched an initiative to get Democratic candidates to boycott a debate co-sponsored by Fox News and the Nevada Democratic Party. (The boycott, powered by Foxattacks.com, was later extended to any and all Fox News debates.)

The point of the online crusade was not to simply embarrass Fox News or rattle Nevada Democrats for being out of touch with the grassroots masses that distrusted and despised Fox News. The point, instead, was to begin chipping away, in a serious, consistent method, at Fox News' reputation. To spell out that Fox News was nothing more than a Republican mouthpiece and that Democrats need not engage with the News Corp. giant.

The lack of Democratic debates for Fox News has meant a huge setback for the news organization from a ratings perspective. Just look at the grand slam CNN hit last week when, on January 21, it broadcast the much-talked-about Democratic debate from South Carolina. The CNN event not only creamed Fox News in the ratings, nearly tripling its audience that night, but the debate set a new cable news mark for the most viewers ever to watch a primary debate.

In fact, of the 10 most-watched debates this election season, Fox has aired just two, compared to CNN's five.

If I'm not mistaken, this also suggests MSNBC has had three of the 10 most-watched debates, which is one more than Fox. (Also, this is likely to continue, given that the debates scheduled for tonight and tomorrow night -- the last two events before Feb. 5 -- are both on CNN.)

CNN President Jonathan Klein, following its New Hampshire ratings win, said, "There's a freshness and exuberance to our coverage that the others just aren't matching.... Fox almost seems downright despondent in their coverage."

It couldn't have happened to a more appropriate network.

Tagged as: media, obama, fox news, cnn, news corp

Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.