Good News... Again

Aug 20th, 2011

The ratings for some of the most dishonest right wing propagandists continue to show evidence of freefall. I noted last month what is arguably the under-reported story of the year, that Fox News' ratings are in a devastating decline. It gets better. A lot better.


From Business Insider:

"The just-released Arbitron report reveals that a lot less people are listening to right-wing talk radio.

With a lull in ratings since November, Rush Limbaugh had a 3.0 share of listeners for his radio time slot, which is a 33% slide from October and from last April, reports Crain's Business.

Meanwhile, The Sean Hannity Show was reported to be down 28% from its peak numbers in the fall."

This does beg a few questions. Where is the shake-up? You know? Where is the evidence that they have been approached by management and are attempting to retool their programs for better market share?

There is none. And, you shouldn't expect any. That is because these are not pundits. They are craven corporatist activists whose masters are willing to lose money so that they might keep dis-informing the public.

Are you ready to fight for the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine yet?

The News Corp Crisis NO ONE Is Talking About

July 22nd, 2011

The hacking story is a big deal. The closing of NOTW is very big deal. The denials by Murdoch and son that they "knew nothing" about multi-million dollar payouts and a potentially international conspiracy to encourage official impropriety are so wildly implausible that only a devoted ideologue could accept them at face value. The death under mysterious circumstances of Sean Hoare, the whistle-blower who first broke the story just prior to Parliamentary hearings on the matter certainly has a greater smell to it than anything the rabid dogs in Murdoch's own little empire had to go on after the Vince Foster suicide.

All in all, this dynamite. It is both an astounding public relations disaster and a sordid criminal affair. And it is far from over. But, in my humble opinion, none of this is as interesting as some very simple and very public information that has gone utterly ignored.

The ratings of News Corp's giant, right-wing American libel machine, Fox News... are in a free fall. Across the first two quarters of 2011, FOX lost nearly 15% of its prime time viewers. Not only are they not the "most trusted name in news," they are no longer even close to being "number 1."

Here's the bottom line from the 2011 Q2 report via Mediabistro:

"CNN reached a cumulative Q2 2011 average monthly audience of 100.4 million, Fox News followed with 83.2 million and MSNBC trailed with 80.3 million."

via

These numbers would spell doom at any other news network. There would be time-slot shuffling, talent firings, producer replacements and major design alterations. However, Fox is not any other network.

Andrew Sullivan put it succinctly a few days ago when he wrote, "I don't put Fox in the category of biased media. it is, rather, propaganda, which is always indifferent to the truth, because its ultimate allegiance is to power."

As an essential tool of the hard, corporatist right wing, Fox isn't going away anytime soon. But the audience is.