The Arizona shootings sent millions of viewers scurrying to cable news channels last weekend. By 4 p.m. Eastern time, a couple of hours after a gunman opened fire at Rep. Gabrielle Gibbons' town-hall meeting in Tucson, an audience of more than 5.2 million had tuned into Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.
Fox News (which led in viewers) nearly doubled its average audience from the previous Saturday. CNN (in second place) more than doubled its audience. At third-place MSNBC, which averaged less than half a million viewers throughout the day, it was a very different story; the audience actually declined 1 percent from the previous week.
Here's an educated guess about what happened: When viewers turned in Fox News, they saw veteran reporters like Bill Hemmer, Megyn Kelly and Shep Smith anchoring. The same on CNN, with Martin Savidge, Don Lemon and Wolf Blitzer taking turns in the chair. But at MSNBC the coverage was anchored by talk-show yammerers Olbermann and Ed Schultz. When big news breaks, that's not what viewers want.
I doubt seriously than anyone even tuned into MSNBC. Their ratings on any other day would be in favor of my guess.
The reason few tuned in on Saturday is the same reason few tune in on any other day -- the rank partisanship.
While Fox is right-leaning, they still present the facts as facts. Straight facts are anathema to MSNBC.
Posted by: Dan Marino | January 11, 2011 at 08:08 PM
/* begin rant (sorr) */
The really bad (um, bad Bad BAD) aspect about however popular Fox socalled news is.. hey, it ain't news a'tall, more of a 700 Hundred Club cult enterprise. All editorials, 24/7, paid off face talent gratefully guzzle the kool-aid inspired infomercials.
The worst aspect is how so many uber-intelligent conservatives embraced Fox's cult.
Ah well, global warming gonna surely take away humanity a few generations down stream. No harm, no foul.
PS: You were right GG.. shoulda coulda woulda enrolled as a Neilson family, if ratings nonsense mattered.
/*** end rant ***/
G* B*ars!
Posted by: CJay | January 11, 2011 at 10:44 PM
and CJAY I bet you live in mommys basement and smoke dope in order to come up with your idiotic post. Grow up little boy/girl/nongender and you may actually undertsnd the pathetic OBAMA talkingpoint's that you spew from your little finger's and infantile brain. Now go ook up all those big words or by like your boyfriend KEITHY and just get a RUBBER DUCKY to 'splain them to you. Amaozing the stuidty of the radical left-wing Olbermann lover's. Now bow to the east and say 13 HAIL OBAMA'S!
Posted by: GOD | January 11, 2011 at 11:03 PM
Considering that Keith Olbermann and other lefty thugs turned this horrible tragedy into an opportunity to slander conservatives in general, MSNBC got what it deserved.
Posted by: Scott | January 12, 2011 at 12:14 AM
"Here's an educated guess about what happened: When viewers turned in Fox News, they saw veteran reporters like Bill Hemmer, Megyn Kelly and Shep Smith anchoring. The same on CNN, with Martin Savidge, Don Lemon and Wolf Blitzer taking turns in the chair. But at MSNBC the coverage was anchored by talk-show yammerers Olbermann and Ed Schultz."
Baloney. You're being very disingenuous here. You make it sound like MSNBC had no straight news anchors on Saturday and they did from 1pm-7pm; Witt, Rehberger, Jansing, and Roberts. If you only want to compare 7pm-11pm which was the timeframe on FNC when Smith, Hemmer and Kelly were on, that's fine. But then you shouldn't be mentioning CNN's Savidge and Lemon since only Wolf Blitzer was on CNN during primetime.
This isn't a defense of Olbermann or Schultz. I didn't think either did that bad under the circumstances, and were remarkably restrained considering their usual bombastic habits, but that's not the point. The point is you cheap shotting MSNBC by making it seem like all they did was put on their pundits. And that they most assuredly did not do.
Here's another possible reason why their viewership was so low. They're infamous for being in tape at that hour and CNN and FNC are not. I've complained about it for years. MSNBC News goes dark after 12pm on weekends. People have learned not to tune in to that channel for news after 12pm.
Posted by: InsideCableNews | January 12, 2011 at 02:16 AM