Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Can Fox News Turn Things Around?
Fox News is afraid over their steep ratings decline according to former Fox host Eric Bolling, who provided viewership statistics. The slide at Fox after the election was not surprising given their Decision Desk’s early call for Biden, as mentioned in the article. The slide for Tucker, Hannity, and Ingraham is more surprising.
Sean and Laura gave full-throated support for challenging the vote, and Tucker has led a jihad against the progressive alliance against Trump and the targeting of Biden’s China connections and corruption. You would think that the general answer for restoring Fox’s standing with its prior audience would be doing the programming that Tucker, Hannity, and Ingraham are doing. But, no, their ratings are down as well.
So what is going on? Part of it, no doubt, is disappointment and depression, making Trump supporters just tune out on any political programming. Part of it is that some portion of the audience is seeking more radical answers to progressive aggression than what Fox provides.
If true, I think Fox is done as the conservative powerhouse. You’ve got to dance with who brung you. After Roger Ailes, Fox seemed to want to tack away from conservatism. They wanted their news professionals to be seen as independent of the editorial slant.
This would have been fine if we weren’t in an age when you play fair, you lose. So “neutrality be damned, let’s go to war!” said Fox’s audience. But Fox did not go to war and now they have a much smaller audience. So, it will remain.
Published in General
Exactly so. The Murdoch boys and their leftist wives will do nothing of the sort, living comfortably off the fortune made by their father, who obviously embarrasses them.
I hate this good people argument. Of course there is good people working in whatever. They are lots of good people working in Communist China, North Korea, Russia and even the Nazi German. Did not / does not change a thing. In the end the good people will do what the government wants or they will lost all they have. When it comes between others and their livelihoods. Others lose.
I have no reason to believe that the vast majority of cops, FBI employees, VA workers and Justice department employees are not freedom loving Americans. They hate what they’re being asked to do (or not do) by inept bureaucrats at the top layers of their agencies/departments/city administration. Do we piss on them as part of the problem, or give them the support they need to sack the traitorous people at the top? I’m for the latter.
Have we seen any evidence that they’re willing to DO the latter?
Or have any ability to? People at the bottom don’t usually get to choose those at the top. In rare cases they may have some influence, but only if there are significant numbers of influential people on the outside who are on the warpath against those top guys, too.
The Newsmax.comTV ratings have soared. They are expanding their offerings in response, for example, they expanded their morning news.
Well played.
And I’m no longer going to check the Fox News site daily in the hopes that they are coming to their senses. From today’s article on Trump’s veto of the bloated spending bill:
We’ve seen multiple departments stand up and refuse to enforce unconstitutional mandates.
Which is an entirely different thing, with an entirely different incentive system. It’s essentially the deep state protecting itself. Sometimes that coincides with doing the right thing; often it doesn’t.
I think there’s a difference between the deep state protecting itself and those within its framework wrestling with the knowledge that their leadership is corrupted. For the revolution/restoration of America to succeed I think we need as many of those people on board as possible, and by the true election results I think those inclined far outnumber those that don’t.
Fox news has been a great addition to the editorial landscape of America. It has never been much of a player in the news business. I would love to see a lower-bias/higher-diversity player in the business of traditional, low-editorial news.
NewsNation is a nightly American television news program on WGN America, which premiered on September 1, 2020. Originating from Chicago, the three-hour-long program utilizes the journalistic resources of the 110 television news operations throughout the United States that are operated under WGN America corporate parent Nexstar Media Group.[2]
The broadcast is designed as an alternative to the opinion-based programs on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News Channel during the 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time slot. (As with those programs, NewsNation offers a same-night rebroadcast from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. ET, in order to align the program with the prime time period in the Pacific Time Zone.) The program combines reporting from five national correspondents and repackaged content from local Nexstar stations.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NewsNation_(WGN_America)
Now that takes me back to when I was a kid in rural Indiana listening to WGN-AM (on a radio I built). True, I was mostly listening to Blackhawks games, but they did put on the news during the intermissions.
I sort of like the 15 minute Fox News on SiriusXM. They have another service that is a one hour deal in the mornings, but I’m not sure it’s on demand. I need to figure that out.
What would be perfect is a format that is like one of those 24 / seven news channels in big urban areas, but none of it is twisted progressive. KCBS is beyond tedious in this sense. KNX is not as bad. Of course both of those have a ton of local stuff.
Congrats on the Instapundit link!
This is your periodic reminder that the economic structure of cable television is vastly different from what you remember from broadcast television in your youth.
Ratings are almost meaningless. FNC is in 87M homes and has the 4th highest carriage fees in the industry. (ESPN, TNT and NFL Network lead the way.) At $1.72/sub that’s a guaranteed $149,640,000 in income per month, or $1,795,680,000 in revenue per year without a single advertisement sold. So when the ratings take a hit it’s not an immediate crisis. Especially since there are no rights fees associated with news.
Where they might be hit for six is their OTT service, Fox Nation. That’s an additional $6/month. If they can keep that base happy, they’ll be fine. It would offset any losses from ratings.
From a person ignorant of this, how does bundling affect the number of homes and revenue? If the providers didn’t “force” us to take packages, as opposed to individual channels, it seems more likely that the economic structure would change. (??)
If you see it on your system you’re paying for it.
Complicating things is retransmission consent for over-the-air stations. In lieu of money for permission to retransmit the signals of Fox’s owned-and-operated, 21st Century could simply demand that FNC be regulated to the most basic tier of systems, assuring the widest possible distribution.
Thanks for the list.
This is a rather grim thread, isn’t it?
Grim? If you have family members who work for Fox News it would be, I suppose. For me, this thread reflects the very best of Ricochet, though many of us are admittedly angry and disappointed with Fox’s decision to abandon Trump supporters way too early in the election decision process..
Eleven years ago I went searching for Mark Steyn’s online podcasts because he was a smart, fresh, funny guest host for Rush and I was feeling frustrated and alone politically. I found Ricochet before the site had even been activated and have been grateful for the community ever since. I especially appreciate posts like this that provide potential online sources for anyone interested in steering away from Fox News right now. Not a grim post at all from my perspective.
Hi, TOD! Fair enough, I guess I was struck by the deep-seated despair expressed in a few comments on page one by Bryan, Fake J/J, and EHerring.
Carry on!
The money structure simply means that FoxNews will suffer more slowly when the time comes to negotiate its cable placements. Less demand means it will be worth less.
Can it recover viewership? It needs to retain its opinion leaders while replacing Chris Wallace and others.