Watching Cable News
| Fri Dec. 4, 2009 10:50 AM PST
Over at The Monkey Cage, Joshua Tucker wonders about the actual size of the daytime cable news audience: "When people say that cable news audiences are only in the hundreds of thousands, does that mean the same hundred of thousands? Or are lots of people watching infrequently?" His colleague Markus Prior answers:
We don’t know for sure how the average audiences add up over the
course of a day or a week because [cumulative] audiences are rarely reported by Nielsen. But it’s a good guess that concentration is pretty heavy.
I think that's a good guess too. This is just anecdotal, but I recently received an email from a reader that began like this:
I just finished a two week visit by a family member of sorts who is about as standard issue Fox conservative as they come. He's 68, retired (since 49) and his daily regimen consisted of waking up and turning on Fox News / CNBC all day — with friggin 2 and 5 year olds running around. (News is not for children and Fox News in particular). At the end of the day, when I get home, he's armed with the talking points and diverts every conversation back to venting and victimization.
And this one from another reader who is temporarily living in his mother's home, where Fox News is "blaring off two TV sets in the house virtually 24/7":
Watching my mother go into a spin cycle with every new "revelation", it occurred to me that it is not even necessary for Fox to spin anything — their job is "rinse and repeat". The FNC watchers let their fevered imagination fill in the gaps, going way beyond FNC's feeble reporting when they describe the issue to their friends and relatives. Because FNC is always on, it is not necessary to actually watch and listen — one can pass in front of a TV, catch a glimpse and a few words of the topic du jour and just make up the rest.
Like I said, this is just anecdotal. But I suspect that Fox watchers (and perhaps other daytime cable news watchers) tend to be people who basically turn it on and listen all day as sort of background noise. If that's true, it means that Fox's daytime audience is (a) really, really small, and (b) almost purely made up of fever swampers. Plus, of course, a few hundred DC political junkies who don't realize how limited its reach is. I'd welcome any actual data that either confirms or contradicts this.
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Comments
I can't speak for anyone
Submitted by Art Eclectic on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 11:06 AM PST.
I can't speak for anyone else, but last week I did the regular holiday phone call with my Dad and we got off onto talking about economics. He launched into a Fox News talking point that the housing crash was caused by the big, bad government forcing banks to lend to minorities and other riff-raff.
I had to tell him he's been watching a bit too much Fox and we needed to change the subject. Thankfully, he complied. However, I was left yet again with a sense that the man I thought was highly intelligent when I was younger is just another weak-minded outrage junkie that prefers his news to fit his existing prejudices.
Sounds Like the Way I Watch MSN in the Evening
Submitted by Detroit Dan on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 11:14 AM PST.
(c:
I have no clue whatsoever
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 11:28 AM PST.
I have no clue whatsoever what the actual picture is, but I see Fox News on (and not ABC/CBS/NBC) at the gym, at the bars, and pretty much wherever I see someone has hung a TV on the wall.
But as Detroit Dan says, sounds like the way I listen to my vomitous local NPR station.
Entertainment?
Submitted by LADave on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 11:43 AM PST.
I think it's important to realize that FNC and all that stuff is really really entertaining to the "swampers" as you put it. You get to be an insider to what's really going on out there, complete with insider jokes and codes. Plus you have the bonus of feeling like you're part of history in your outrage, especially if you actually get off your duff and wave signs at the local teabagger event. It's a borderline narcissist's dream! That's a lot of entertainment value for folks with lots of time and loads of confusion looking to make sense of their world.
Sounds like they way I read a
Submitted by B on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 12:35 PM PST.
Sounds like they way I read a few political blogs.
No data, but I've seen the 24/7 and small child thing myself in FNC households.
feel free to turn the channel...
Submitted by elisabeth on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 12:47 PM PST.
I spend more time than anyone would like in hospital waiting rooms, and several hours every three weeks in an "infusion suite" where three or four chairs are grouped around one or two tvs. It's true that there seems to be some sort of default fox news setting, but I just ask "is anyone watching this?" and if not I say, "there are other options, let's try X" or "Ok then, let's turn it off." This might not work in bars, but it's been effective in the hospital setting.
I think Gore has the wrong
Submitted by B on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 12:50 PM PST.
I think Gore has the wrong model for a cable TV station that makes a run for FNC's money.
I figure the Weekly World News could make a cable news station that really bit into Fox's viewership. They key is to get some stories out there like -- PACK OF WILD COCKER SPANIELS TERRORIZES WYOMING!, WOMAN DELIVERS OWN BABY WHILE SKYDIVING! FBI CAPTURES BAT CHILD! MESSAGE FROM SPACE TRAVELING ELVIS RELAYED BY VOYAGER!
And get some of those blonde news anchors from CNBC.
Daytime ratings hard to get, perhaps impossible for civilians
Submitted by buzzp on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 12:52 PM PST.
Need info from Nielsen (they might, repeat might, report some very generalized numbers to a journo from Mother) - the standard Cable News ratings disgorged by the media/media (TV Newser, TV by the Numbers, B&C, etc.) cover
Total Day (24 hr),
Prime Time Plus (5PM-Midnight, Beck thru O'Reilly repeat),
sometimes Morning (6-9AM),
but never the daytime hole
Demos covered are P2+ (Total Viewers), 25-54 (the advertisers' favorite), and 35-64 (more news-centric demo) - but I've never seen 18-34 or 65+
One could try to back-out daytime by some algebra, but long experience in ratings tells me the results wouldn't be what's actually happening (ratings have this habit of adding up to either 85 or 115, if you get my drift)
The reported but limited numbers are avail every weekday on both TV Newser and TV by the Numbers
UPDATE - I also agree with B, above.
that they are stupid is the important point
Submitted by cld (not verified) on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 12:51 PM PST.
This may sound a bit harsh, but the only way to deal with a relative who watches Fox News is to tell them that they're stupid. Don't try to talk about any of their nonsense with them, just tell them that they're stupid.
Then you'll have to say, 'I don't think you understood what I said. You're a stupid person. You're a really stupid person. You're being used by something corrupt and in this way you're a corrupt person and a force for corruption.'
Whatever they say, repeat it again. The fact that they are stupid is the important point and the point we really need to address.
Love your method for dealing
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 9:56 PM PST.
Love your method for dealing with the dummies! But it comes too late for me. I stopped talking to my brain dead relatives 9 years ago this month. There was lots of guilt for not loving mommy anymore, but I'd never go back. I do remember back when she was sane (er) and young (er), she told us to pull the plug if she was ever in a vegetative state. But there are just too many damn TV plugs to pull, and you can't pull the plug on a newspaper subscription. And too many siblings willing to plug them back in again.
But those numbers seem way low to me. If wingnut TV viewership is so limited, how is it that so many of us have ones in our families? Of course it's more than just Fox. The mainstream media seems to take much of its narrative from Fox, and the message gets regurgitated ad infinitum.
What is the viewership for
Submitted by john sherman (not verified) on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 1:38 PM PST.
What is the viewership for the Daily Show and Colbert Report? It must be higher than anything FOX can legitimately claim. I saw an AP story saying that NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me had a listening audience of 3 million with another million on the net, so why are we expected to take FOX seriously and ignore WWDTM?
WWDTM
Submitted by optical weenie on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 2:22 PM PST.
I suspect Car Talk has an even larger audience.
Ratings
Submitted by Vincent Sheffer (not verified) on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 2:37 PM PST.
Don't cable companies know what we watch? If so, why don't they compile ratings reports? Are they forbidden from doing so? Why is Nielsen still the "official" ratings company?
I am genuinely curious about these questions and hope that someone reading Kevin is more knowledgeable than I am on this subject.
Thanks.
My mom watches this as well.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 7:25 PM PST.
My mom watches this as well. Fortunately Comcast did something to the cable and she no longer gets Fox. She keeps asking me to fix it and I keep delaying.
How much different is this from people who get caught up in soap operas? General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, As the World Turns? Or maybe Pro Wrestling?
Tune in in tomorrow to see how poor, sweet Sarah Palin is attacked by those mean liberals. Is Sarah pregnant again? Will Todd leave her? Why are the McCain people so mean to her? and on and on
I think the difference between things like MSNBC or Air America and Fox is that Fox is narrative based feeding the fears and victimization of the wingnuts and MSNBC et al are information based (whether you think that information is correct or not).
How Nielsen sampling actually works
Submitted by NSF (not verified) on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 10:00 PM PST.
I'm in a Nielsen household (posting anon because we're not supposed to make it public). If you leave the TV on for more than 42 minutes, lights on the meter start to blink and you have to either change the channel or press an acknowledgement button on your remote; otherwise it stops metering.
The explanation we were given was that "some people like to leave the TV on for their pets".
During the period when Newt
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Dec. 4, 2009 10:57 PM PST.
During the period when Newt and his gang furloughed the Federal Government employees, I spent several days listening all day to the news to see if we were going to work soon or if we were going to be paid or not. I was a low level Fed who could not afford a day without pay, let alone longer. What I discovered is that all the news casts, starting on the hour were virtually identical--word for word. The only time it was different was if some real new news (breaking) occurred. Why would they write new copy for the same old story, anyway. That's when I realized that if you leave your TV on for all your waking hours on the same news station, that you could be easily brainwashed by all that repetition--even if you, seemingly, are not watching/listening to it. So, those who watch nothing but Fox are soon spouting all its talking points because they are brainwashed.
And The Key Difference Is . . .
Submitted by Midland (not verified) on Sun Dec. 6, 2009 7:43 AM PST.
Noted by a couple of people: NPR and MSN, whatever their other failings, are basically honest. They are trying to tell the truth. Fox News is a propaganda outfit intended to con people into believing the conservative line as understood by Roger Ailes. Some of their reportes, gawd save us, may actually believe some of the nonsense they push, but that isn't a requirement.
Nielsen
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun Dec. 6, 2009 2:19 PM PST.
I work for Nielsen. Interesting post from the sample home. Absolutely correct. The subscribers to the data (buyers and sellers) look at the total number of different viewers (Cumulutaive audiences) all the time. Reaching the same people over and over again does works as a way to make money in the media business, although there is a price premium if you do have a broad reach.
Cable companies could figure out how many boxes were tuned into a program, but it is a lot of data to deal with. You also have to know who is sitting in front of the set. When we check this type of data against sample homes, there are no surpises, so what we report is pretty much what is going on out there.
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