The Cable News Bubble
Terry McDermott takes a look at Fox News and notes the obvious: they don't tend to have a lot of Democratic guests:
This appears to be politically motivated, but that could be just an artifact — the content seems political but the primary aim is much more likely commercial. Cable news is not literally a broadcast business, but a narrowcast. At any given moment, there are a relative handful of people (in peak hours less than five million and in non-prime hours half that, out of the U.S. population of 320 million) watching all of these networks combined. American Idol, in contrast, routinely draws 30 million. Although cable news is a comparatively small market, it is a small market with a much larger mindshare, mainly because the media are self-reflective, creating a kind of virtual echo chamber.
....[Roger] Ailes’s most valuable insight was that sharp opinions do not necessarily chase an audience away. In fact, they seem to have created one. There is no worry of offending a broad audience, because there is no broad audience to start with anymore.
I think McDermott's suggestion that this might not be politically motivated is a little silly, something that he pretty much concedes in the rest of his piece. Still, the main point of this paragraph can hardly be emphasized enough: hardly anyone watches cable news. Even in prime time, Fox has a couple million viewers — that's about 1% of American adults — and the other operations have a million or so. Cable news is a molehill that gets routinely turned into a mountain range because they happen to be talking about the most self-obsessed bunch of gossip hounds in the country: politicians.
But the reality is that almost no one is watching. Take away the echo chamber and Glenn Beck would be about as important as a guy on a soapbox in Central Park. Which is basically what he is.
Comments
Timeless...
This cable news carnival seems to be a contest between Jesters on the Left and Clowns on the Right. Jesters and Clowns. Timeless.
It's kind of a double-edged
It's kind of a double-edged sword--on the one hand, you can dismiss cable news for only being watched by politicians. On the other hand, can you then blame Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etc., for the unpopularity of the health care bill?
Not only do politicians watch
Not only do politicians watch cable, so do broadcast and print journalists. And they then report on the "controversy" caused by the "death panels." And so it goes.
Echo chambers and amplifiers
One might also note that the left side of the blogosphere has to take a bit of the blame for giving the maunderings of FOX News, _et al_, their currency by dissecting every word uttered by these ideologues and screaming in outrage at every slightest insult.
It's what I've taken to calling the Outrage Industry. During the flap over Don Imus's admittedly stupid and racist remarks about "nappy headed hoes" a couple of years ago, I heard an interview on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday with one of the so-called media watchdogs. I believe the speaker said that they have somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty people going through recordings of news- and opinion-casts, basically looking for things to be offended about.
The right has its own "watchdogs" that occupy themselves similarly.
It all makes me very tired just thinking about it.
If nothing else, the shrieks of outrage give the offender's remarks much more publicity than if their words just disappeared into the oblivion of the ether as they deserve.
Think about it the next time you start huffington and puffington over the latest moronic, self-serving thing Glenn Beck blathers on about.
Absolutely, no right wing blather should ever be challenged
It's much better to let them wallow in their own ignorance. Just ask President John Kerry.
I've never watched cable news.
Of any variety, so all I see is the reaction, about which I think Bloggy Bottom is partially correct. I find it hard to get too outraged by the latest wingnut freak-out of the week and when I do, I find my relatively non-political friends have never even heard about whatever is tweaking the left blogosphere.
The only caveat I have is that apparently the villagers are always watching themselves on cable news and it becomes an agenda-setter for people who get to have really important agendas that affect us all.
Query
What's the audience for network news shows. Bonus, can we get a chart? And can it begin in, say, 1960?
addenum
and how about radio audiences? how do those measure up? What's the NPR audience? Do more people watch Sean Hannity or listen to him on radio?
Oh, somebody mentioned radio.
Oh, somebody mentioned radio. I bet the conservative radio audiences are huge. I've driven through parts of the country where the only radio options are conservative talk and conservative religion. Somebody's listening to all that stuff. And if you get near a college town, add NPR. That's about it.
Radio:
According to advertisers radio is the best place to be because of the great number of people who listen to it as they daily auto-commute. (Something told to me by someone who is more informed than I).
In "liberal" Los Angeles
There are the following conservative AM radio stations:
KFI
KABC (though less so recently)
KRLA
KFWB (used to be all news)
KGIL (for a while, the format changes a lot)
and one liberal station: KTLK, which is boring.
What amazes me is that there is no middle of the road talk radio. You know, where people put politics aside and discuss the Oscars, something the Hubble telescope photographed, funny TV commercials, the return of the McRib sandwitch, some new toy that youngsters are excited about. Fun stuff.
Everyone on talk radio is wearing a frown (or worse). It's a bummer, man.
"What amazes me is that there
"What amazes me is that there is no middle of the road talk radio. You know, where people put politics aside and discuss the Oscars, something the Hubble telescope photographed, funny TV commercials, the return of the McRib sandwitch, some new toy that youngsters are excited about. Fun stuff."
I imagine this is because any human being with a brain listens to podcasts when they drive rather than radio leaving radio, by default, to the morons.
Jesus people, rather than complaining about the crap on the radio, point your iTunes to a podcast like _What's new at Stanford_ or _Uchannel_ and listen to something that isn't just pinheads shouting at each other.
Try NPR
Try NPR (but perhaps not in LA). They often waste quite a bit of time on things like Oscars, telescopes, TV, etc., etc. They should leave you quite amused and and with your quiver reloaded for return to combatting the liberals.
NPR
NPR is just another example of the far left tilt of almost all media.
There seems to be an echo in
There seems to be an echo in here.
cassandra of Troy: you've got it just backwards,
should be 'clowns to the left of me, jokers on the right'
stealers wheel 'stuck in the middle'
http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/reservoirdogs/stuckinthemiddlewithyou.htm
Definitely enough clowns, jesters, jokers and babble to go around.
anomaly:
How very interesting. Thank you so much! I should have remembered that when I think I have an original thought, it almost always turns out that it has been thought of before!
(Dyslexia: Origin:
1885–90; < NL < Gk dys- dys- + léx(is) word + -ia -ia. But, alas, it is not really true that I understand Greek.)
Cable news a molehill that
Cable news a molehill that gets routinely turned into a mountain range because they happen to be talking about the most self-obsessed bunch of gossip hounds in the country: politicians.
And pundits. And reporters.
Cable news influences network news and Sunday talk shows and print news and op eds, and this trickles down to all political coverage and heavily determines how issues get framed and how political figures get represented. Most voters (and undecideds moreso) absorb this stuff through tiny exposure to it (watercooler gossip, friends, headlines). But it does shape the way voters view things. That's why its a mountain.
I live amongst rural
I live amongst rural "heartland" folk. MANY of them watch Fox, and Beck. They and their philosophical compadres may well make up a tiny proportion of the TV audience. I read somewhere that changes in the direction of world events is usually caused, or at least spearheaded by, tiny, but focused cohorts. That rang true to me.
IOW, the fact that only a relative few actually watch Beck does not necessarily mean he's not influential. Aren't the "Teabaggers" actually few in number?
If "no one watches cable
If "no one watches cable news" why is Fox always on at the gym, in the airport, in hotel lobbies, etc.? Maybe no one is watching, but the damn thing is ubiquitous.
MOJO: your stupid comment system says my name belongs to a registered user. It should. I am a registered user. Can't you make this thing work?
Mr Schnook - Off topic
Whatever happened to Gloria Allred(sp). Is she still around? What station would she be on. I used to admire her because, although she was somewhat more liberal than I was, she was a polite listener and rarely interrupted her interlocutor even when she vehemently disagreed with them. I felt I could actually learn something hearing them argue. I usually can't. Hosts don't let disagreeing callers complete their sentences. Basically the caller's just a foil so the host can continue his/her rant.
"Still, the main point of
"Still, the main point of this paragraph can hardly be emphasized enough: hardly anyone watches cable news."
I think an even more important point to emphasize is that the people who do watch cable news are idiots, sociopaths, or both. America is a society where supposedly well-meaning teachers try to encourage their students to read newspapers and watch cable news, and this has bred watching cable news as a kind-of mid-brow status symbol:if you tell me you don't watch any TV except, of course, for PBS and CNN, I am supposed to be impressed at what an intelligent and thoughtful fellow you are.
The truth is that the world would be vastly better off if the sort of people who think that watching cable news is a mark of intelligence were roundly mocked as being the equivalent (which they are) of people who watch televangelists. Like televangelists, we're not going to completely rid the world of cable news, but we can at least marginalize it rather than dignifying it with respect.
Insightful, Sir...
Especially comparing televangelists to the likes of General Beck, etc.!
The idea that Fox does not
The idea that Fox does not have Democrats come on is totally stupid. Of course they do. In fact there are a lot more Democrats on Fox than there are conservatives on the other networks.
You
You are, of course, right. Olberman and Maddow, and Chrissie etc almost never have contrarian guests on - Fox has them regularly. Fox is clearly the fairest and most balanced of all the cable news and commentary shows.
While I never watch Olbermen, etc.,
You and I must be watching two different foxes.
News sources
If nobody watches cable news, where do they get news from? I think that what is happening is that there are a lot more choices, (network news, newspapers, MSM websites, blogs, etc.) and the viewership is spreading out. So no single source dominates. On the other hand, the depth and passion of belief is also extremely important, and Fox does a good job of leading its viewers to the conclusions it wants.
IT'S NOT POLITICAL DISCUSSION, IT'S TV !
"Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it! How do you feel?"
"WE'RE MAD AS HELL AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE!"
(Paddy Chayefski, you warned us 34 years ago.)
Fixed News
The ironic thing is that the show most seemingly newsy and straight is Chris Wallace's Sunday show. But watch the interaction of the players in his stacked deck "round table": body language and facial expressions are canned: Kristol's smirk when Juan is talking, Avuncular Brit glancing as if for cues at the host at the other end of the table, the other token non-male a PBS reporter so middle of the road she thinks she's a fashion maven of lesser age. Juan Williams is the Pat Buchanan of Republicanism, Fixed News vis-a-vis MSNBC and the McLaughlin Group. One almost hears the voice of Roger Ailes saying, "Camera Two come in close on Brit!" "Camera One, get the tight shot of Bill smirking at Williams." And so it goes. This cable network is its own Frankenstein's monster.
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